“Heliophysics in Europe” Workshop

    Heliophysics (including space weather) encompasses space plasma physics throughout the solar system, from Sun to the solar wind, planets (including the Earth) and small bodies. 

    Heliophysics has a large and active international community, with significant expertise and heritage in the European Space Agency and Europe. Several ESA directorates have activities directly connected with this topic, including ongoing and/ or planned missions and instrumentation (Directorate of Science, Directorate of Earth Observation, Directorate of Human and Robotic Exploration, Directorate of Technology, Engineering and Quality and the Directorate of Operations).

    The ESA Heliophysics Working Group was established in 2021 by the ESA Director General to act as a focus for discussion, inside ESA, of the scientific interests of the Heliophysics community, including the European ground-based community and data archiving activities.

    After several internal discussions the ESA Heliophysics Working Group organised ‘Heliophysics in Europe’. 

    The goal of the meeting: To improve communication between the European Heliophysics community and the various ESA directorates involved. Highlighting opportunities existing in those directorates, but also looking to identify synergies spanning directorates and possible future coordination efforts. 

    Areas of mutual interest already identified include archiving, data formats and discoverability, as well as improved connection to the modelling and ground-based community. 

    The focus was not to be on specific missions, or regions or bodies in the solar system, but in terms of Heliophysics phenomena and processes that cut across ESA.

    This was aimed at  better connection of all parts of the Heliophysics community (as described above) to all relevant parts of ESA and vice versa.