Prof. Steve Milan (University of Leicester)

Sun et Lumière: the terrestrial magnetosphere revealed through auroral dynamics

The shape, structure, and dynamics of the Earth’s magnetosphere are controlled by its interaction with the solar wind on the outside and its coupling to the ionosphere and atmosphere on the inside, ultimately powered by magnetic reconnection.  In this talk I will outline our current understanding of the driving of magnetospheric and ionospheric convection by reconnection, the formation of electrical current systems that transmit stress throughout the system, and their relationship to auroral morphology.  The extension of these ideas to other magnetospheres will be described, and areas for future study will be identified.

Schedule

15:30 - 16:30 Monday 1 July 2019, Faraday Lecture Theatre

About the speaker

Steve Milan is Professor of Heliospheric Physics at the University of Leicester and a member of the Birkeland Centre for Space Sciences at the University of Bergen, Norway.  He is a co-proposer of the forthcoming ESA-Chinese Academy of Sciences Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) mission.  He received the European Geophysical Society’s Young Scientist’s Publication Award in 2001 and the RAS Chapman medal in 2013.