Publisher's Synopsis
Magnetospheres of the Outer Planets, the first chapter in this volume, presents an overview of comparative magnetospheres with an emphasis on basic processes that are common to all planets but that vary in importance among the bodies of the solar system because of the different parameter regimes that they represent. The Magnetic Fields of the Planets and Other Bodies covers topical theories in connection with the magnetic fields. From 1600 to the middle of this century, only one planet was known to have a magnetic field. It is now known that all the terrestrial planets have iron cores. The major planets, Jupiter and Saturn have metallic hydrogen cores and Uranus and Neptune shells, outside Earth-like cores, of an electrolyte-ammonia and water. The Moon is now widely accepted as having an iron core of 500km in radius. Energy Transfer Processes in Planetary Exospheres and Extended Neutral Clouds provides papers covering interesting results from past observations of the plasma-neutral interaction effects but also acts as a forerunner for the exciting developments in the field of space plasma physics and the missions of Giotto, Ulysses, Galileo and Casini in future years.