52nd ESLAB Symposium - Comparative Aeronomy and Plasma Environment of Terrestrial Planets

14-18 May 2018 - ESA/ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands

 

Introduction

Processes in the upper atmospheres, ionospheres and magnetospheres of terrestrial planets and their interactions with the solar wind are of great importance for our understanding of atmospheric losses to space and evolution of climates. Spacecraft observations at Mars, Venus, Earth and Titan, as well as Moon, Mercury and other atmosphere-less bodies provided a wealth of data that allow characterization of  the processes in all their diversity and in a comparative manner. The wide range of boundary conditions found in the Solar System provides tremendous input into understanding evolution of the atmospheres of exoplanets as driven by aeronomical processes. 

The symposium addressed the processes in the upper atmospheres and plasma envelopes of all terrestrial planets, including escape and atmospheric evolution. The experimental results from MAVEN, Mars Express, Venus Express, Pioneer-Venus, Cluster, Swarm, Messenger, Cassini-Huygens and other space missions formed the basis of the symposium programme and were complemented by results from theoretical investigations and numerical modelling.

The symposium was organised with 5 days of sessions, including invited summary talks, oral presentations, poster sessions and discussions.

 

More details on the conference are available here.