Space Physics

D'Angelo, Frank, Gayley, Gurnett, Kletzing, Merlino, Mutel, Scudder, Spangler

Space Physics is the study of everything that is above Earth's atmosphere but inside the solar system. It includes the Earth's ionosphere (the ionized gas just above the atmosphere), the magnetosphere and magnetotail (beyond the ionosphere), the Sun's corona and solar wind, the planets, inter-planetary space, and cosmic rays. Our research program includes all these subjects. Student research projects include analyzing spacecraft data, performing theory, or simulating space physics conditions using laboratory experiments. Students also participate in a weekly Astronomy / Space Physics seminar.		Image gallery
Space physics research at Iowa attained international prominence in 1958 when Prof. Van Allen discovered energetic particles trapped in Earth's geomagnetic field, forming the "Van Allen Radiation Belts." He subsequently received the Crafoord Prize, which is given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences as an equivalent of a Nobel prize. With the strong international reputation of our space physics faculty, including two members of the National Academy of Sciences, and our commitment to graduate research, Iowa has become a preeminent leader amongst universities in space physics. Our faculty includes experimenters who have built instruments for spacecraft including Pioneer, Voyager, Cassini, Galileo, Polar, Cluster, and many other major space exploration missions.

• Basic plasma physics problems, including laboratory simulations of space plasma phenomena, dusty plasmas
• Facilities include two lab rooms with three plasma chambers
• Major equipment includes two Q-machines with magnetic field up to 0.5 T; each machine is dedicated to a single graduate student
• Each student is advised by both D'Angelo and Merlino; students may also be assisted by an electrical engineer and may participate in collaboration with Naval Research Laboratory scientists
• Students develop skills including: vacuum, electronics, data acquisition, machining
• Previous PhDs are now employed in industry, government labs and universities, including a professor and two research scientists
• In most years, grant support is available for multiple RA stipends and student travel to conferences

• Spacecraft: NASA's Polar, investigating the Earth's auroras and upper atmosphere; Japan's Geotail, investigating plasma dynamics of Earth's distant environment; JPL's Galileo, observing Jupiter
• Thesis work in spacecraft projects prepares students for post-graduate work at many institutions
• Students may directly operate three cameras on the Polar spacecraft
• Students also interact with other group members, including three senior research scientists and one senior engineer
• Students participate in collaborations with scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, JPL, ISAS, Max Planck Institute/Lindau, and universities including UCLA, Colorado and New Hampshire
• In most years, grant support is available for multiple RA stipends and student travel to conferences

• Analytic calculations in ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) of Alfvén-wave growth in accelerated plasmas; detection volumes for optical tracking experiments
• Students perform analytic work followed by more complete computations, developing skills including programming in Fortran and C++
• Students' experience in writing dynamic numerical simulations prepares them for positions either as academic postdocs or as a software specialists in industry
• In most years, grant support is available for an RA stipend and student travel to conferences

• Experimental studies of planetary radio emissions and plasma waves
• Analysis of plasma data from Voyagers 1 and 2 now approaching interstellar space; Galileo in orbit around Jupiter; Cassini on its way to Saturn; and Cluster, which consists of four spacecraft in Earth orbit
• Group recently constructed hardware to measure water in Martian soil and the Martian ionosphere
• Computing facilities dedicated to the group include >4 TB of online data storage for networked computers
• Students analyze spacecraft data
• Supervised 50 space physics thesis projects over a period of 37 years; former students now at NASA centers, industry, other universities
• Students also interact with other group members, including 4 research scientists, 5 engineers, 6 programmers
• In most years, grant support is available for multiple RA stipends and student travel to conferences

• Auroral and magnetospheric physics
• Space missions include Cluster (a joint NASA-ESA four-spacecraft mission to study the Earth's magnetosphere); NASA's Polar satellite; the Rocket Auroral Correlator Experiment (a NASA sounding rocket)
• On-campus facilities include two vacuum chambers and an electronics lab with all equipment newer than 1997
• Students participate in hardware construction of detectors to fly on NASA sounding rockets
• Students also interact with other group members including two postdocs, a research scientist, as well as scientists from UCLA, Dartmouth, and NASA's Wallops Flight Facility
• In most years, grant support is available for multiple RA stipends and student travel to conferences

• Basic plasma physics problems, including laboratory simulations of space plasma phenomena, dusty plasmas
• Facilities include two lab rooms with three plasma chambers
• Major equipment includes two Q-machines with magnetic field up to 0.5 T; each machine is dedicated to a single graduate student
• Each student is advised by both D'Angelo and Merlino; students may also be assisted by an electrical engineer and may participate in collaboration with Naval Research Laboratory scientists
• Students develop skills including: vacuum, electronics, data acquisition, machining
• Previous PhDs are now employed in industry, government labs and universities, including a professor and two research scientists
• In most years, grant support is available for multiple RA stipends and student travel to conferences

• Spacecraft observations made using Cluster, which is a group of four spacecraft operated by the European Space Agency
• Planetary radio emissions (Auroral Kilometric Radiation) are studied using Cluster, operated in VLBI mode (Very Long Baseline Interferometry)
• Students develop programming skills using C and Fortran
• Students also interact with group members including a programmer as well as other astronomy faculty
• In most years, grant support is available for an RA stipend and student travel to conferences

• Analysis of data from NASA's Polar spacecraft, in Earth orbit
• Search for geophysically important plasma processes in near-Earth plasmas
• Computer-intensive research
• Computing facilities dedicated to the group include a 24-processor computing cluster
• Students develop skills in: writing codes in C, Fortran and IDL, and numerical methods
• Two previous PhD students, placed in three-year postdoc positions at LANL and UC Berkeley
• Students will also interact with group members including four software engineers as well as other faculty
• In most years, grant support is available an RA stipend and student travel to conferences

• Solar wind and the transition from the solar corona to the solar wind
• Students analyze data from both ground-based instruments and spacecraft
• Students analyze data from: ACE, which is NASA's spacecraft in the solar wind, and ISEE, which is a NASA and European Space Agency spacecraft
• Students develop skills in numerical methods, writing code in C and other languages
• In most years, grant support is available for an RA stipend and student travel to conferences