Professor Chris Reynolds, Fellow and Director of Studies in Natural Sciences at Sidney, is a member of the HelioSWARM Science Team that has been selected as one of NASA’s two science missions to help improve our understanding of the dynamics of the Sun, the Sun-Earth connection and the constantly changing space environment.
HelioSWARM was selected alongside the Multi-slit Solar Explorer (MUSE) to provide deeper insights into our universe and offer critical information to help protect astronauts, satellites, and communications signals such as GPS.
The HelioSwarm mission is a constellation or “swarm” of nine spacecraft that will capture the first multiscale in-space measurements of fluctuations in the magnetic field and motions of the solar wind known as solar wind turbulence.
Professor Reynolds is one of a small number of HelioSWARM‘s non-US based co-investigators, and is part of the Astrophysics Working Group. The Group’s job is to figure out the implications of HelioSWARM's measurements for our understanding of plasmas in less accessible settings like near black holes or out in intergalactic space. The key to this will be the use of models and computer simulations of turbulent plasmas.
Learn more about the mission on the NASA website.
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