Electrostatic Phenomena on Planetary Surfaces

Autorentext

Carlos I Calle is a senior research scientist at NASA Kennedy Space Center and is founder and head of the Electrostatics and Surface Physics Laboratory. He is currently working on the problem of electrostatic phenomena of granular and bulk material as they apply to planetary surfaces, particularly that of Mars, developing instrumentation for future planetary exploration missions. He has over 150 scientific publications, four books, and several patents. Dr Calle received the NASA Exceptional Technological Achievement Medal in 2010, the NASA Spaceflight Awareness Award in 2003 for his outstanding contributions to the space program, and the NASA Silver Snoopy Award in 2007 for his exceptional contributions to human spaceflight.

Klappentext

The diverse planetary environments in the solar system react in somewhat different ways to the encompassing influence of the Sun. These different interactions define the electrostatic phenomena that take place on and near planetary surfaces. The desire to understand the electrostatic environments of planetary surfaces goes beyond scientific inquiry. These environments have enormous implications for both human and robotic exploration of the solar system. This book describes in some detail what is known about the electrostatic environment of the solar system from early and current experiments on Earth as well as what is being learned from the instrumentation on the space exploration missions (NASA, European Space Agency, and the Japanese Space Agency) of the last few decades. It begins with a brief review of the basic principles of electrostatics.