Do Not Lose the Great Observatory for Sun-Earth Connections

摘要

The United States — through NASA — together with its key international partners in Europe, Russia, Japan and China, has assembled the most remarkable and capable constellation of spacecraft ever put in place to study the connected Sun-Earth-planetary system. From the detailed examination of the Sun and its corona by SOHO and TRACE, to the studies of the Earth's magnetosphere and upper atmosphere by missions such as POLAR and TIMED, to the exploration of the farthest reaches of the solar system by the Voyagers and Ulysses, the armada of space physics missions is working together to revolutionize our understanding of the Sun, the interplanetary medium and the atmosphere-ionosphere-magnetosphere system.