S. Spangler home page

Steve Spangler's
Home Page

Contact information

U. S. Mail:	Steven R. Spangler Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242
Internet:	steven-spanglerATuiowa.edu (use @ for AT)
Office:	705 Van Allen Hall
Office phone: fax:	(319) 335-1948 (319) 335-1753

Senior College 2018...Astronomy through Exoplanets

This is the web page for the Senior College course "Other Worlds in Space: Modern Astronomy through Exoplanets"

Field Trip for Thursday, April 12 is:

ON

Senior College; March-April 2018

Research

My research interests are in the solar wind and solar corona, the galactic interstellar medium and astrophysical plasma physics.

Solar Wind: My interest here is in the properties of interplanetary space between the Sun and about 0.30 astronomical units. I am particularly interested in the behavior of the solar wind, or tenuous plasma that fills space. I am using radio telescopes to measure the speed of the solar wind, the properties of turbulence therein, and the plasma state of the solar corona. This work is carried out with the Very Long Baseline Array and the Very Large Array of the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory. National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO)
VLA and UVCS Observations of the Corona: AAS Abstract
Colloquium: The Magnetic Solar Corona ...Power Point File
Seminar: Interplanetary Scintillations and the Solar Wind ...Power Point File
Poster from 205th AAS Meeting, San Diego
Presentation on 2005 Opposition of Mars
HPC2005 Talk: Strength and Structure of the Coronal Magnetic Field ...Power Point File
The Magnetic Field in the Sun and the ISM
Latest from the MER Spacecraft
Propagation Distance of Interstellar Turbulence
Pushchino Talk: Faraday Rotation and the Corona ...Power Point File
Radio Measurements of Coronal Turbulence
Freiburg Talk: Probing the Corona with Radioastronomy
Nonlinear Waves Talk: Currents in the Solar Corona
Scintillations in Solar Wind and Interstellar Medium
Iowa Academy of Sciences Talk
Big Power Law in the Sky
Space Between the Stars
Faraday Rotation Measurements of Coronal Mass Ejections
Joule Heating of the Solar Corona
IAU Symposium 257: Radio Remote Sensing of the Corona and Solar Wind
The Solar Corona
Iowa Academy of Sciences Talk (2011)
Turbulence and Plasma Environment of Local ISM
Measuring Plasma Microscales in the Interstellar Medium
Measuring the Coronal Magnetic Field
Plasmas in Space: From the Sun to the Orbit of Earth
The Interstellar Medium: My main interest here is in the properties and role of turbulence in the interstellar medium. This has included turbulence in the regions where stars form, and in the general interstellar medium that fills space between the stars. I am particularly interested in searching for possible enhanced turbulence associated with the origin of the cosmic rays.

Voyager Measurements of the Interstellar Medium

Bill Kurth and I are collaborating with colleagues from Cornell University to measure properties of the plasma in the interstellar medium just outside the heliopause. We are studying the "plasma line" at the plasma frequency with the University of Iowa experiment on Voyager 1.

Data for 7 days in 2014 when the plasma line was strong

Data for 5 days in 2015 when the plasma line appears to be absent

Data for one "frame" in 2015 when the plasma line appears to be absent