What is heliophysics?
Heliophysics is the integrated study of the Sun, its planets, and space environment as a dynamic system. It focuses on the Sun's turbulent magnetic activity and its effects on the upper atmosphere of Earth, as well as on other solar system planets and the surrounding heliosphere.
It encompasses many areas of inquiry: cosmic rays and particle acceleration, space weather and radiation, dust and magnetic reconnection, solar activity and stellar cycles, aeronomy and space plasmas, magnetic fields and global change, and the interactions of the solar system with our galaxy.
How does it benefit us?
Heliophysics has great value for two reasons. It is critical in understanding space weather and its potentially crippling impacts on our vital technologies: our satellites, communications and navigation signals, and power grids. This understanding guides our mitigation strategies.
Heliophysics also teaches us about habitability. In studying the Sun’s changing effects on planetary atmospheres, we can learn by proxy about another star’s effects on the atmospheres of its exoplanets. This knowledge will support our search for life elsewhere in the universe.
Announcements
2023 NASA Jack Eddy Postdoctoral Fellows
UCAR | CPAESS and NASA are excited to welcome five new NASA Jack Eddy Postdoctoral Fellows who will be beginning their interdisciplinary research projects contributing to the field of heliophysics. There are: Peijin Zhang, Charlotte Waterfall, Robert Jarolim, Devojyoti Kansabanik , and Mei-Yun Lin.
Find out more about this new class!
Heliophysics Summer School
Read more about the 2023 Heliophysics Summer School on Observational Heliophysics. Application deadline is March 3, 2023. This year we have both virtual and in-person sessions.
CEDAR 2023 Workshop
The CEDAR Program is having its annual Workshop June 25-30, 2023. The Coupling, Energetics, and Dynamics of Atmospheric Regions (CEDAR) Program studies the space-atmoshpere interaction region.
2023 NASA Jack Eddy Symposium
The 4th Eddy Symposium will be held October 30 to November 3, 2023, in Golden, Colorado. More information will be coming soon.
3rd Jack Eddy Symposium: Stellar Collaborations
The 3rd Eddy Symposium was focused on processes in connected systems such as Sun-Earth relations, weather-climate connections, and novel star-planet interactions.
Read an article about the Symposium which was held in June, 2022.
Summer School Shines a Light on the Interdisciplinary Nature of the Sun
The 2022 Heliophysics Summer School's theme was “Connecting the Heliosphere: Using Global Models to Connect In-situ and Remote Sensing Data Throughout the Heliosphere.”
Explore the Sun-Earth connection
For grad students & early postdocs
Focus on the physics and impacts of Sun-generated
space weather events
For early-career PhDs
Perform cross-disciplinary research under
experienced scientist mentors at U.S. institutions
For faculty & students
Access presentations, problem sets and solutions,
textbooks, and more from past Summer Schools
For researchers & engineers
Collaborate to outline new space weather research
that will critically improve an existing technology area
Partners in nurturing a new science
NASA's Living With a Star Program (LWS) and UCAR Community Programs' Cooperative Programs for the Advancement of Earth System Science (CPAESS) partnered in 2006 to launch the Heliophysics Summer School. Since then they have worked to foster heliophysis as an integrated science, teaching a new generation of researchers to engage in cross-disciplinary communication.