This volume, the fourteenth in the Space Sciences Series of ISS/, is dedicated to the matter in the universe, which was the topic of a workshop organized by ISSI from 19 to 22 March 2001 in Bern. The aim of the meeting was to gather ac tive researchers from various fields (cosmology, astrophysics, nuclear and particle physics as well as space science) to asses the exciting new developments in the search for abundant and yet unknown forms of matter in the universe. Due to the importance of the field and the rapid developments which are taking place ISSI decided to organize a workshop on matter...

This volume in the Space Sciences Series of ISSI is dedicated to the detennination of the Earth's gravity field, which was the topic of a workshop organized by ISSI from 11 to 15 March 2002 in Bern. The aim of the meeting was to gather active researchers from various fields (satellite geodesy, gravity field modelling, solid Earth physics, oceanography, etc.) to assess the exciting new developments that are made possible by space missions currently in orbit or about to be launched. Following some general enquiries with the scientific community concerning the desirability of organising a...

J. L. Bada.J. Gomez-Elvira.E. Javaux.M. Rosing. F. Selsis.R. Summons.R. M. Bonnet.O. Botta Originally published in the journal Space Science Reviews, Volume 135, Nos 1 4. DOI: 10. 1007/s11214-008-9328-1 (c) Springer Science+Business Media B. V. 2008 Twooftheoverarchingquestionsaskedinthepursuitofscienti c knowledgeare: (1)Isthere life outside the Earth? and (2) How did life originate on the Earth? Not coincidently, these questions are major milestones on the roadmap of the new interdisciplinary science eld of Astrobiology. A signi cant part in the quest for answers to these questions requires...

Terrestrial Magnetism provides a detailed review of all aspects of the main magnetic field of the Earth produced within its core. Topics include the knowledge of geomagnetism coming from paleomagnetic and archeomagnetic data, centuries of terrestrial observations, and more.

This volume gives an overview of knowledge about the light nuclei created in the Hot Early Universe: H, D, 3He, 4He, and 7Li. It combines observational and theoretical results on the early Universe, the distant galaxies, our Milky Way, the local interstellar cloud, and the solar nebula. The implications for cosmology, galactic and stellar evolution, dark matter research etc. are outlined and directions of future research are indicated.

The discovery of chemical elements in celestial bodies and the first estimates of the chemical composition of the solar atmosphere were early results of Astrophysics - the subdiscipline of Astronomy that was originally concerned with the general laws of radiation and with spectroscopy. Following the initial quantitative abundance studies by Henry Norris Russell and by Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, a tremendous amount of theoretical, observa tional, laboratory and computational work led to a steadily improving body of knowledge of photospheric abundances - a body of knowledge that served to guide...

It is well known, that the Sun as central star of our solar system gravitationally controls the orbits of planets and minor bodies. Much less known is the domain of plasma fields and charged particles, however, in which the Sun with a radius of less than 0.7 Million km governs the heliosphere out to about 15 Billion km, a distance about 20 000 times larger in radius or nearly 10¹³ times bigger in volume. What forces activates the Sun to maintain this power? Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and their descendants are the troops serving the Sun during high solar activity periods.

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2 With a global average irradiance of 342 W/m, the Sun is by far the largest source of energy for planet Earth. In comparison, the internal energy produced by Earth 2 itself is only about 0. 087 W/m (Pollack et al., 1993), which in turn is 3. 5 times 2 larger than the 0. 025 W/m of heat produced by the burning of fossil fuels. About 31% (31 units) of the solar energy which arrives at the top of the - mosphere is re?ected back to space by scattering from clouds, aerosols, and the Earth s surface. Almost 20 units of solar radiation are absorbed in the atmosphere. The remaining 49 units are...

The SOHO and Cluster missions form a single ESA cornerstone. Yet they observe verydifferentregionsinoursolarsystem: thesolaratmosphereononehandandthe Earth s magnetosphere on the other. At the same time the Ulysses mission provides observations in the third dimension of the heliosphere, and many others add to the picture from the Lagrangian point L1 to the edge of the heliosphere. It was our aim to tie these observations together in addressing the topic of Solar Dynamics and its Effects on the Heliosphere and Earth with a workshop at the International Space Science Institute (ISSI), under the...

This volume consists of papers developed from a joint ACE/ISSI symposium at the occasion of the eightieth birthday of Johannes Geiss. The symposium explored insights into the composition of solar-system and galactic matter that have been brought about by recent space missions, ground-based studies, and theoretical advances. Coverage includes linking primordial to solar composition, planetary samples, solar sources and fractionation processes, and interstellar gas and Cosmic rays.