Keywords: interstellar matter; local fluff; local interstellar matter; heliosphere; interaction between heliosphere and surrounding interstellar cloud. URL: http://astro.uchicago.edu/~frisch/

Homepage of Priscilla C. Frisch

Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago

==> Recent Preprints:

"The Boundary Conditions of the Heliosphere: Photoionization Models Constrained by Interstellar and In Situ Data" Slavin and Frisch, 2008, Astronomy and Astrophysics, in press.

"Is the Sun Embedded in a Typical Interstellar Cloud? Connecting Interstellar Gas in and out of the Heliosphere" Frisch, 2008, Space Sciences Reviews, doi=10.1007/s11214-008-9394-4 (astroph copy)

"The S1 Shell and Interstellar Magnetic Field and Gas near the Heliosphere" (Submitted to ApJ April 11, 2008)

==> Solar Journey Reference Book

*Purchase Book:"Solar Journey: The Significance of our Galactic Environment for the Heliosphere and Earth".

*Read the book online: Chapters 1-12

*Local copy of Solar Journey flyer

*Publisher: Springer-Verlag ....... Book dedicated to John A. Simpson (postscript) ....... Table of Contents (postscript) ....... Editor: P. C. Frisch ....... Contributing Authors: Maciej Bzowski, Kenneth S. Carslaw, Hans J. Fahr, Horst Fichtner, Vladimir Florinski, Priscilla C. Frisch, Jasper Kirkby, Markus Landgraf, Eberhard Moebius, Hans-Reinhard Mueller, Eugene N. Parker, Nikolai V. Pogorelov, Klaus Scherer, Nir J. Shaviv, Jonathan D. Slavin, Olaf Stawicki, Peter Wurz, Ararat Yeghikyan, Gary Zank. (This is the initial Solar Journey paper The Journey of the Sun (astro-ph/9705231) , where the physical properties of recent changes in the galactic environment of the Sun are evaluated. I couldn't get this paper published in a regular scientific journal -- maybe it was too original.)

==> Visualization of Scientific Data

* "Solar Journey -- A Galactic Tour of the Milky Way and Beyond" (DVD showing visualization of scientific data available at Finley-Holiday) See Soljourn Project web site.

This is an educational computer animated film on the astronomy of the local neighborhood of the Earth and the Sun developed as part of our NASA-sponsored research work. The DVD version containing the Solar Journey animation and supplementary science materials is distributed by Finley-Holiday Films at the web site linked above. The Soljourn astronomical visualization project is in collaboration with Prof. Andrew Hanson of Indiana University.

* Short educational movie clips (.mov files):

(1) Heliosphere journeying through the Milky Way Galaxy: (heliosphere.mov),
(2) Zoom to the black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, traveling through six orders of magnitude in spatial resolution and eight orders of magnitude in wavelength: (blackhole.mov).
Alternative downloads: SOLJOURN website or Hanson homepage

* Software for visualizing scientific data:

The Soljourn software, including a program for spatial coalignment of astronomical data over different coordinate precisions and spatial scales, can be downloaded from: Solar_Journey (053006). Here is a software summary; download software at AISRP Downloads site. The sofware packages include:
** 1. Earthday: Earth-centered visualization tool for real-time satellite data and planetary trajectories.
** 2. Starview: Utility for visualizing very large-scale astronomical data from solar system to local galaxy groups
** 3. SkyAlign: Accurate interactive alignment of images, photographs and 3D gas cloud models against sky coordinates
** 4. [To be released, not in current release] DistEdTool: Tool for the construction and verification of models representing spectrally absorbing and emitting gas cloud between the Earth and nearby stars.

More on AISRP software: AISRP; AISRP Code and Algorithm Library; AISRP downloads.

==> Useful Links

* Miscellaneous

* Atomic Line list

* Homepage of Don York's Group

* Last Day of Summer, 2004 (courtesy of NOAA)

==> Research

* Recent Scientific Papers

Please consult ADS abstracts, or see the astro-ph archive to access my recent publications.

* Older Scientific Papers on Nearby Interstellar Material

Ionization of Nearby Interstellar Gas: Slavin and Frisch, ApJ, v. 565, pp. 364-379, 2002. Tables of ionization and densities for each of the 25 models can be downloaded HERE.

"Century of Space Sciences" review paper on The Interstellar Medium of our Galaxy, published by Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Interstellar Dust: The Journal of Geophysical Research has a special section on Interstellar Dust in the Heliosphere .

Space Telescope Science Institute, May 2002 Astrobiology Symposium.

Heliosphere animation, Quicktime movie, available here part of presentation. Images from the heliosphere animation, showing orientation of heliosphere tail towards the constellation of Orion.

==> Scientific Visualizations

==> More Papers (not current, see ADS abstracts)

==> Space Weather

==> Science Press

==> Odds and Ends

[all images copyrighted]
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Fog on mountain tops
at Cerro Tololo InterAmerican Observatory

Osprey and nest

Lyric Opera Dr. Atomic Cast Party

Backpacking in the
Wind River Range
'The Hand'
at Pinnacles National Monument
Yup, that's me....
Tribute to Tran at ITEP, Moscow, June 2001

==> Photo Gallery

==> Slow Load

[University of Chicago ] [Crerar Library] [UC Astronomy homepage] [Reaching Me] [email me]

Any opinions expressed on this page or anywhere else on my web site have nothing to do with the University of Chicago or the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics.