Textbooks
The Sun, the Earth, and Near-Earth Space: A Guide to the Sun-Earth System
Written by John A. (Jack) Eddy
Available on Amazon, as a PDF file (29MB), and as a COMET MetEd training module (login required).
This gentle overview provides straightforward explanations of the events and processes that connect the Sun to the Earth, with special emphasis on space weather and sun-climate. It is now available as a COMET MetEd training module (login required), as well as on Amazon and as a PDF file (29MB).
Principles of Heliophysics: a textbook on the universal processes behind planetary habitability
Principles of Heliophysics written by Karel Schrijver et al
V 1.3, January 15, 2022
This free online volume weaves together excerpts from the previously published Heliophysics textbooks listed below. It emphasizes universal processes, with an eye towards what provides Earth (and similar (exo-)planets) with a relatively stable setting conducive to life.
This volume is intended for students in physical sciences in later years of their university training and for beginning graduate students in fields of solar, stellar, (exo-)planetary, and planetary-system sciences. New here is the inclusion of 200 "activities" in the form of problems, exercises, explorations, literature readings, and "what if" challenges.
This textbook will be updated based on user input: please share your ideas, comments, and corrections via the email link on the cover page and on p. xiii, and keep an eye on this site for revisions.
Textbook series on "Heliophysics"
Edited by Karel Schrijver, George Sisco, Fran Bagenal, and Jan Sojka
These books resulted from a series of summer schools being taught around the themes of these volumes; problem sets are available to complement the material in the textbooks. The Heliophysics books aim at the advanced undergraduate and starting graduate-level students, taking the perspective of heliophysics as a single intellectual discipline. The books touch on most branches of heliophysics, with particular emphasis on universal processes and on the multi-disciplinary character of many of its diverse range of specialties.
The sub-disciplines within Heliophysics have a rich variety of available textbooks, but no textbooks have existed until now that present the diverse materials from their common physical principles, and help teachers well-versed in one discipline to teach the directly related areas within other disciplines.
Textbooks I-IV are subtitled 'Plasma physics of the local cosmos', 'Space storms and radiation: causes and effects', 'Evolving solar activity and the climates of space and Earth', and "Active stars, their astrospheres, and impacts on planetary environments". Textbook V, "Space weather and society" is available online with free access.
Lecture material, problem sets, solutions, and laboratory primers are found under "Resources"
Heliophysics I: "Plasma physics of the local cosmos"
Cambridge University Press: Available as Hardback, Paperback and Adoble eBook Reader
1) Prologue
2) Introduction to heliophysics
3) Creation and destruction of magnetic field
4) Magnetic field topology
5) Magnetic reconnection
6) Structures of the magnetic field
7) Turbulence in space plasmas
8) The solar atmosphere
9) Stellar winds and magnetic fields
10) Fundamentals of planetary magnetospheres
11) Solar-wind magnetosphere coupling: an MHD perspective
12) On the ionosphere and chromosphere
13) Comparative planetary environments
Appendices:
1) Data archives, modeling sites, space weather forecasts
2) Descriptions on packages for numerical modeling
3) Problem sets
4) Collected textbook figures
Order Today! Available in Hard, Soft & eBook formats!
Heliophysics II: "Space storms and radiation: causes and effects"
Cambridge University Press: Available as Hardback, Paperback and Adoble eBook Reader
1) Perspective on heliophysics
2) Introduction: space storms and radiation
3) In situ detection of energetic particles
4) Radiative signatures of energetic particles
5) Observations of solar and stellar eruptions, flares, and jets
6) Models of coronal mass ejections and flares
7) Shocks in heliophysics
8) Particle acceleration in shocks
9) Energetic particle transport
10) Energy conversion in planetary magnetospheres
11) Energization of trapped particles
12) Flares, CMEs, and atmospheric responses
13) Energetic particles and manned spaceflight
14) Energetic particles and technology
Appendices:
1) Data archives, modeling sites, space weather forecasts
2) Descriptions on packages for numerical modeling
3) Problem sets
4) Collected textbook figures
Order Today! Available in Hard, Soft & eBook formats!
Heliophysics III: "Evolving solar activity and the climates of space and Earth"
Cambridge University Press: Available as Hardback, Paperback and Adoble eBook Reader
1) Interconnectedness in heliophysics
2) Long-term evolution of magnetic activity of Sun-like stars
3) Formation and early evolution of stars and protoplanetary disks
4) Planetary habitability on astronomical time scales
5) Solar internal flows and dynamo action
6) Modeling solar and stellar dynamos
7) Planetary fields and dynamos
8) The structure and evolution of the three-dimensional solar wind
9) The heliosphere and cosmic rays
10) Solar spectral irradiance: measurements and models
11) Astrophysical influences on planetary climate systems
12) Assessing the Sun–climate relationship in paleoclimate records
13) Ionospheres of the terrestrial planets
14) Long-term evolution of the geospace climate
15) Waves and transport processes in atmospheres and oceans
16) Solar variability, climate, and atmospheric photochemistry
Appendices:
1) Data archives, modeling sites, space weather forecasts
2) Descriptions on packages for numerical modeling
3) Problem sets
4) Collected textbook figures
Order Today! Available in Hard, Soft & eBook formats!
Heliophysics IV: "Active stars, their astrospheres, and impacts on planetary environments"
Cambridge University Press: Available as Hardback, Paperback and Adoble eBook Reader
1) Introduction
2) Solar explosive activity throughout the evolution of the solar system
3) Astrospheres, stellar winds, and the interstellar medium
4) Effects of stellar eruptions thorughout astrospheres
5) Characteristics of planetary systems
6) Planetary dynamos: updates and new frontiers
7) Climates of terrestrial planets
8) Upper atmospheres of the giant planets
9) Aeronomy of terrestrial upper atmospheres
10) Moons, asteroids, and comets interacting with their surroundings
11) Dusty plasmas
12) Energetic-particle environments in the solar system
13) Heliophysics with radio scintillation and occultation
Appendices:
1) Data archives, modeling sites, space weather forecasts
2) Descriptions on packages for numerical modeling
3) Problem sets
4) Collected textbook figures
Order Today! Available in Hard, Soft & eBook formats!
Heliophysics V: "Space weather and society"
Early chapter collection v. January 5, 2015
This volume is being developed over the course of several years of the Heliophysics Summer School, starting with the first chapter in 2012. Chapters are being added as they become available from the authors/lecturers over the period 2012-2015, after which this volume will be completed as the 5th in the Heliophysics series. We recommend that the reader occiasionally check this URL for updates.
Until this volume is complete, the numbering of chapters, figures, and tables is subject to change.