Impacts of Space Weather
- What critical measurements and scientific understanding will improve
forecasting of solar variability and its impact on the geospace environment?
- Can we develop the capability to
reliably forecast the harmful effects of solar
activity on vulnerable societal systems (e.g., power grids; satellites;
tracking of orbital debris; nagivation systems; pipelines; and communications)?
- What critical measurements and scientific understanding will make it
possible to protect technological systems from space weather?
Changes in the Earth's Atmosphere
- How can we distinguish changes in the upper atmosphere and ionosphere
that are due to anthropogenic causes from those that are due to solar
change?
- How do solar changes affect the Earth's climate?
Habitability of Space
- Can astronauts and their equipment survive the full range of space
hazards, such as solar energetic particles and photons, trapped radiation,
and galactic cosmic rays?
- Can we forecast space weather sufficiently well for safe interplanetary
travel?
Origins of Life
- How important is magnetic field shielding to the development of
life?
- How do solar-driven processes influence the evolution of planetary
atmospheres?
- What processes are responsible for the escape of volatiles from
planetary atmospheres? What are the implications for the presence of
water on a planet?
- What levels of stellar radiation, particles, and field variability
can life tolerate?
- What does our understanding of Sun-Earth processes tell us about
the habitability of extrasolar planetary systems?
- What role does radiation, particles, and magnetic fields
variability play in the origin and evolution of life?
