Our earth is immersed in the near-earth space plasma environment, which plays a vital role in protecting our planet against the solar-wind impact and influencing space activities. It is significant to investigate the physical processes dominating the environment, for deepening our scientific understanding of it and improving the ability to forecast the space weather. As a crucial part of the National Major Scientific and Technological Infrastructure–Space Environment Simulation Research Infrastructure (SESRI) in Harbin, the Space Plasma Environment Research Facility (SPERF) builds a system to replicate the near-earth space plasma environment in the laboratory. The system aims to simulate the three-dimensional (3-D) structure and processes of the terrestrial magnetosphere for the first time in the world, providing a unique platform to reveal the physics of the 3-D asymmetric magnetic reconnection relevant to the earth's magnetopause, wave–particle interaction in the earth's radiation belt, particles’ dynamics during the geomagnetic storm, etc. The paper will present the engineering design and construction of the near-earth space plasma simulation system of the SPERF, with a focus on the critical technologies that have been resolved to achieve the scientific goals. Meanwhile, the possible physical issues that can be studied based on the apparatus are sketched briefly. The earth-based system is of great value in understanding the space plasma environment and supporting space exploration.

Much can be learned from terrestrial planets that appear to have had the potential to be habitable, but failed to realize that potential. Mars shows evidence of a once hospitable surface environment. The reasons for its current state, and in particular its thin atmosphere and dry surface, are of great interest for what they can tell us about habitable zone planet outcomes. A main goal of the MAVEN mission is to observe Mars’ atmosphere responses to solar and space weather influences, and in particular atmosphere escape related to space weather ‘storms’ caused by interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs). Numerical experiments with a data-validated MHD model suggest how the effects of an observed moderately strong ICME compare to what happens during a more extreme event. The results suggest the kinds of solar and space weather conditions that can have evolutionary importance at a planet like Mars.

It is shown with a particle simulation that the outer gap can be reproduced under a few simple assumptions. The simulation includes just the first principles, namely Maxwell's equations, a relativistic equation of motion with radiation drag, and electron-positron pair creation. We also suggest that the Y-point (the open-close boundary in the equator) is likely to be a place of heating and acceleration of plasma, and therefore it would cause high-energy emission. The dead zone along the separatrix of the oppositely directed current is found in the middle latitude region, which separates the outer gap and the polar cap accelerators.

In previous experiments by the authors a generation of intense field aligned current (FAC) system on Terrella poles was observed. In the present report a question of these currents origin in a low latitude boundary layer of magnetosphere is investigated. Experimental evidence of such a link was obtained by measurements of magnetic field generated by tangential sheared drag. Results suggest that compressional and Alfven waves are responsible for FAC generation. The study is most relevant to FAC generation in the Earth and Hermean magnetospheres following pressure jumps in Solar Wind.

The importance of reconnection in astrophysics has been widely recognized. It is instrumental in storing and releasing magnetic energy, the latter often in a dramatic fashion. A closely related process, playing in very low beta plasmas, is much less known. It is behind the acceleration of auroral particles in the low-density environment several 1000 km above the Earth. It involves the appearance of field-parallel voltages in presence of intense field-aligned currents. The underlying physical process is the release of magnetic shear stresses and conversion of the liberated magnetic energy into kinetic energy of the particles creating auroral arcs. In this process, field lines disconnect from the field anchored in the ionosphere and reconnect to other field lines. Because of the stiffness of the magnetic field, the process resembles mechanical fractures. It is typically active in the low-density magnetosphere of planets. However, it can also lead to significant energy conversion with high-energy particle production and subsequent gamma ray emissions in stellar magnetic fields, in particular of compact objects.

Jupiter's moons, embedded in the magnetized, flowing plasma of Jupiter's magnetosphere, the plasma seas of the title, are fluids whose highly non-linear interactions imply complex behavior. In a plasma, magnetic fields couple widely separated regions; consequently plasma interactions are exceptionally sensitive to boundary conditions (often ill-specified). Perturbation fields arising from plasma currents greatly limit our ability to establish more than the dominant internal magnetic field of a moon. With a focus on Ganymede and a nod to Io, this paper discusses the complexity of plasma-moon interactions, explains how computer simulations have helped characterize the system and presents improved fits to Ganymede's internal field.

A regression analysis was carried out between the ground-based geomagnetic data from the southern polar regions (above −55° corrected geomagnetic latitude) and the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) components in the geocentric solar-magnetospheric co-ordinate system and solar wind (SW) parameters. Hourly mean values of the geomagnetic field horizontal components H and D from 20 Antarctic observatories and automatic stations of 1978–80 and 1983–84 were examined. Regression coefficients were used as geomagnetic perturbation vectors which were rotated 90° clockwise to plot the equivalent current vector patterns in the “corrected geomagnetic latitude-magnetic local time” co-ordinates. The results which are described in the paper reflect geomagnetic phenomena associated with the IMF and SW parameters for the austral summer season only (November, December, January, February). It was found that, in general, global characteristics of the ionospheric convection patterns agree well for both hemispheres. Geomagnetic variations, which are generated by the interaction of the SW plasma and frozen-in IMF with Earth's magnetosphere, represent three types of equivalent current systems: a) two-vortex system with transpolar current from nightside to dayside, controlled by the “quasi-viscous” interaction and southward IMF; b) zonal current system, controlled by the azimuthal IMF; and c) two-vortex system with transpolar current from noon to midnight controlled by the northward IMF. The southern polar cap (above −75°), which was more densely packed with automatic magnetometers than the northern cap, permit us to investigate the fine structure of the high-latitude current systems in detail.

Energy from the outer regions of the magnetosphere may be transferred to the polar ionosphere by plasma waves. A magnetometer array operated during the Antarctic winter observed Ultra-Low-Frequency (ULF) plasma waves in the Pc 1–2 (0.1–10.0 Hz) frequency range, propagating parallel to the surface of the Earth in a waveguide or duct centred at ∼300 km altitude in the ionosphere. These compressional fast mode plasma waves most likely originated in the outer magnetosphere as shear mode plasma waves guided along the geomagnetic field. The region of origin in the magnetosphere for the waves is not certain as several widely spaced volumes map along geomagnetic field lines to a relatively close ensemble in the polar ionosphere. This paper compares the direction of propagation for the waves with signatures of magnetospheric regions geomagnetically projecting onto the ionosphere. Regions such as the polar cusp, low latitude boundary layer and mantle were observed by DMSP spacecraft and a SuperDARN high-frequency radar. The most likely region in the polar ionosphere for the fast mode waves to have originated from is equatorwards of the polar cusp, suggesting the field guided waves originated just inside the magnetopause. A case is made for association of the observed Pc1-2 ULF waves with post-noon, field-aligned-current systems driven by reconnection of the solar Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF) and the geomagnetic field near the magnetopause.