Book contents
12 - Planetary magnetospheres
Summary
In the laboratory, we can modify the conditions in our experimental apparatus and record how the process changes. We would like to be able to make such modifications in studying the solar-terrestrial system, but we cannot. By and large, solar-terrestrial physics is an observational rather than an experimental science. There are few active experiments we can perform to determine how the system works, either in the magnetosphere or in the laboratory. Except by using computers, we cannot create magnetospheres with quantitatively scaled parameters to see how they work. Even in our computer models, we make approximations and do not simulate correctly all the physical processes that occur. Furthermore, our observations are restricted to the magnetospheres that our spacecraft have explored.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Space PhysicsAn Introduction, pp. 372 - 395Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2016