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Debye is a space plasma physics mission that will be the first specialised 鈥榚lectron telescope鈥� with the aim of making the fastest measurements of electrons ever made in outer space. The mission aims to answer the science question 鈥淗ow are electrons heated in space and astrophysical plasmas?鈥� - understanding energy exchange and transport in plasmas is key to understanding the energisation and acceleration of particles throughout the universe. This impacts everything we see in space and astrophysics, from the unexplained million-degree temperature of the solar corona, to the mysterious 鈥榗ooling-flow problem鈥� where plasma between clusters of galaxies is hotter than it should be.

Debye is named after the Dutch-American physicist and chemist famous for early work that defined what a plasma is and the smallest characteristic scale in a plasma, called the 鈥楧ebye length鈥�. Debye won a Nobel prize in 1936 for chemistry.

The mission will consist of a mother spacecraft and three daughter spacecraft. The mother spacecraft will carry instrumentation to measure particles, electric fields, and magnetic fields. The three daughter spacecraft will fly in formation around the mother spacecraft and carry search-coil magnetometers to measure fluctuations in the magnetic field. Formation flying of four spacecraft allows the mission to measure the smallest magnetic waves that interact with the electrons.

The mission will begin at small separations between the spacecraft of just a few 100 metres. The formation will then expand during the mission lifetime to multiple hundreds of kilometres. In this way, Debye will study plasma processes that occur on different scales.

Commenting on Debye being shortlisted,聽Dr Wicks聽said: 鈥淚t is fantastic that Debye has been selected for further study. If Debye is chosen this summer, we will break records for the fastest particle distribution measurements made in space and the closest formation flying of spacecraft in deep space. As well as these technical achievements, we will make breakthroughs in the fundamental processes of plasma heating that occur all over the universe using plasma in our own back yard. It is really amazing that studying short scales close to the Earth will help us understand superclusters of galaxies, the largest-scale structures in the Universe. On the way we can learn a lot about the Sun, the solar wind and fascinating astrophysical objects like supernovae, accretion disks, and galaxies. We have Peter Debye to thank for the original work on electric fields in charged fluids in the 1920s and there is no better way to celebrate that achievement than by naming a mission after him 100 years later.鈥�

Links:

/mssl/research-projects/2018/dec/debye

Twitter: @DebyeMission

Photo by M. Druckm眉ller, NASA