Magnetopause magnetic reconnection during periods of northward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) plays a key role in the entry of solar wind mass into the magnetosphere. The effects of reconnection can be observed in the low-altitude cusp, and the new NASA TRACERS mission is designed for this purpose. I will present a TRACERS-THEMIS conjunction near the peak of a geomagnetic storm after the IMF had turned northward. In the low-altitude cusp, TRACERS observed signatures consistent with lobe reconnection poleward of the cusp, including reversed ion dispersions and sunward convection. Concurrent THEMIS observations at the low-latitude magnetopause reveal the presence of a magnetosheath boundary layer (MSBL) and capture of magnetosheath plasma on magnetospheric field lines, both consistent with poleward-of-cusp reconnection. Global simulations of the event show that poleward-of-cusp reconnection was adding magnetic fields and plasma to the magnetosphere, and in the process moving the cusp poleward. The event also illustrates how the magnetosphere and cusp recover when the IMF turns northward after a storm has eroded the magnetopause inward and moved the cusp equatorward.

Jupiter’s moon Europa is a key target in the search for extraterrestrial life, but assessing its habitability via magnetic induction requires a well-grounded understanding of the plasma environment. At Europa, this task relies on magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) models that have been developed over many years. While powerful, these models are computationally expensive, with some codes requiring > 12 hours on a 2,000-core machine. Fitting spacecraft observations to MHD models demands many runs, resulting in a potentially days- or weeks-long process. This presents a major bottleneck for missions such as Europa Clipper and JUICE, potentially limiting their scientific return.
In this talk, I introduce a transformer-based surrogate for a state-of-the-art MHD model used to help characterize Europa’s subsurface ocean. The surrogate evaluates in milliseconds on a laptop rather than hours on a supercomputer, achieving a speed-up of approximately 40,000x while delivering high-fidelity, uncertainty-aware magnetic field predictions. This acceleration enables three new scientific pathways that are feasible with MHD alone: large-scale parameter surveys, simulation-based inference, and feature-importance analysis. These analyses are important as the environment is poorly constrained observationally. Overall, this approach represents a paradigm shift in the investigation of space plasmas and opens the door to a host of novel science investigations.

NASA science missions are often complex systems of systems, involving various stakeholders, including the United States’ Congress. To ensure a clear and concise communication of expectations, requirements, and constraints, NASA has adopted the Science Traceability Matrix (STM). STM provides a logical flow from the decadal survey to science goals and objectives, mission and instrument requirements, and data products. STM serves as a summary of what science will be achieved and how it will be achieved, with a clear definition of what mission success will look like. In this seminar, I will present the STM from the Parker Solar Probe (PSP), including requirements relating to the plasma instrument for which I am a co-investigator. I will describe how our team used the STM to map the mission’s top-level requirements to mission success criteria and helped to eliminate any single point of failure that could end the mission prematurely. I will then present my own research on magnetic switchbacks in the PSP magnetic and plasma observations and their role in solar wind acceleration and heating. I will conclude the seminar by discussing how my research on the temporal evolution of switchbacks in the solar wind led to a new STM, and helped to chart a multidisciplinary path to designing a ground-breaking science mission concept, titled Space Weather Investigation Frontier (SWIFT), with the potential to improve space weather forecasting lead times by up to 40%.

Extraterrestrial EM induction was first carried out in the 1970s
by forming magnetic transfer functions for the Moon as the ratio of
magnetic fields observed at the surface (Apollo 12) to those observed in
distant orbit (Explorer 35). In March 2025, a similar analysis was
performed using the Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS) on Blue Ghost
Mission 1 and the ARTEMIS spacecraft. In spite of nearly 90 deg arc
distance between these surface locations, the derived subsurface
conductivities are very similar. This sharply limits contemporary
temperatures under the western nearside of the Moon in spite of its past
history of widespread volcanism. The two-week surface mission recorded
surface electric and magnetic fields in the solar wind, magnetosheath, and
magnetotail, including an eclipse and sunset. Plasma properties correlate
well with ARTEMIS.

Mars’ lack of a global magnetic field led to low expectations for auroral phenomena on the planet, but MAVEN and Emirates Mars Mission observations have unexpectedly shown auroral activity to quite diverse in nature, dynamically varying and often global in scope. The image below shows three fundamentally different types of aurora on Mars. Ironically, Mars’ lack of a global field is actually responsible for most of the activity, which leads to a new perspective for non-magnetized objects in our solar system and beyond. Each of the three types of aurora is a tracer of a different important process involving the interaction between solar influences and the near-Mars magnetic and charged particle environment. The seminar will describe observations by MAVEN’s Imaging UltraViolet Spectrograph (IUVS) and the Emirates Mars UltraViolet Spectrometer (EMUS) and highlight the new insights they offer.

Space weather is the “weather” of the space environment driven by our active Sun—solar eruptions and changing solar wind conditions that can disturb Earth’s magnetic field and upper atmosphere, disrupt satellites and communications, degrade navigation and timing, increase radiation risk to astronauts, and induce electrical currents in long conductors on the ground. Over the past decade, U.S. preparedness for major space weather events has changed in two consequential ways: (1) the power sector began translating scientific risk into enforceable reliability practice when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) directed the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) to develop Reliability Standards to mitigate geomagnetic disturbance (GMD) impacts on the Bulk-Power System ; and (2) the United States adopted a coordinated, whole-of-government posture through the National Space Weather Strategy and Action Plan—now further advanced through a more recent federal implementation plan that builds on the 2015 foundation .

I will highlight key scientific and operational developments from the last few years, including NASA’s Space Weather Program role in advancing space weather observations, models, and applications that support prediction and tracking across the solar system. A central case study will be the May 2024 geomagnetic storm—first G5 (“severe”) storm in over two decades—now commonly referred to as the “Gannon storm,” and what it revealed about magnetosphere–ionosphere coupling, satellite impacts, and the pathways to societal consequences.

Finally, I will offer focused perspectives on high-impact risk areas—especially electric power grids—connecting space physics to practical resilience: where the key areas of uncertainty are, what “good enough” information looks like for operations, and how research, standards, and planning can converge to reduce national risk before the next extreme event.

Learn about ionizing radiation in the final frontier from UCLA Space Medicine Program Director Dr. Haig Aintablian and Radiation Oncology resident Dr. Nic Nelson. They will share a brief overview of modern space medicine and basic radiobiology before exploring the space radiation environment with its unique risks to astronaut health. They will then illustrate how researchers and mission planners are preparing for the next phase of human space exploration—interplanetary travel—by investigating different physical and biological countermeasures and applications in personalized medicine.

Solar radio bursts are signatures of nonthermal electron acceleration by energetic events such as flares and coronal mass ejections. The launches of Parker Solar Probe in 2018 and Solar Orbiter in 2020 have enabled new views of radio bursts from the vantage point of the inner heliosphere. In this talk, I will briefly discuss some of the top radio burst discoveries of the Parker-Orbiter era, with a focus on circular polarization observations made by Parker Solar Probe. I will describe the measurement of polarization using spacecraft antennas, show examples of circularly polarized Type II and Type III radio bursts, and discuss how polarization can serve as a remote diagnostic of radio burst source regions.

Galileo, Cassini and Juno space missions have provided much data on gas giant magnetospheres. Here we examine the important commonalities of the two systems that also characterise the differences to the plasma environment of the inner planets. Both systems are fast rotators and have internal sources of magnetospheric material deep within the system. The internal sources means there must be a system for transport of material outward. Commonly, marginally stable interchange motions of flux tubes are invoked to provide diffusion on relatively small scales transverse to the field. This no doubt occurs near the source but processes like self-organisation may lead to more ordered motion at larger distances. A large distinction between Jupiter and Saturn systems is that the jovian planetary magnetic field is far from axially symmetric with respect to the planetary rotation axis whereas Saturn’s field is close to axially symmetric. However, despite this, the Saturn system does exhibit variable periodicities in plasma, radio, aurora and the external magnetic field around 10.7 hours. The external magnetic source was a surprise; the ubiquitous Saturn oscillations are still described as “mysterious”. No similar oscillations are recorded at Jupiter. We shall aim to remove some of the mystery and suggest that the dynamical effect of rotation has not been fully appreciated in either system.

Prediction serves as the ultimate test of our scientific understanding of geophysical systems. Accurate forecasting of near-Earth space environmental conditions is critical to radio communication, navigation, and space traffic management. Effective numerical prediction of the region’s conditions allows us to better protect important space assets and related systems in the event of natural hazards. My research group aims to advance the science and engineering of forecasting, as applied to the Earth’s atmosphere extending from the ground to geospace. Prediction of the constantly changing near-Earth space environmental conditions – affected by both space and terrestrial weather – is inherently challenging. Data assimilation provides a systematic approach to integrating observations with first-principles models, extending the predictive capability of numerical models by reducing uncertainties in drivers and preconditions and constraining model dynamics with observations. The data assimilation and ensemble-based probabilistic modeling framework can also be applied to the design of future missions and the targeting of observations to maximize scientific returns of observing systems. This seminar showcases some of the latest data assimilation research and outlines future plans, setting the stage a discussion on how we can work together to advance the next generation of predictive modeling and observational strategies.