NASA Postdoctoral Program - Understanding the Connections between Large and Small Scale Structures in the Solar Wind

The NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) offers unique research opportunities to highly-talented scientists to engage in ongoing NASA research projects at a NASA Center, NASA Headquarters, or at a NASA-affiliated research institute. These one- to three-year fellowships are competitive and are designed to advance NASA's missions in space science, Earth science, aeronautics, space operations, exploration systems, and astrobiology. This specific opportunity focuses on examining the connections between large-scale structures (such as coronal mass ejections and stream interaction regions) and small-scale structures (such as magnetic reconnections, ion beams, and ion-scale waves) in the solar wind. Large-scale structures can provide sufficient energy to drive small-scale changes in the solar wind, yet the connection between them remains a mystery and is not well investigated. Examining their relationship can offer critical insights into energy cascade processes across scales. The Parker Solar Probe mission launched in 2018 has reached regions as close as about 10 solar radii from the Sun and crossed the Alfven surface, offering a unique opportunity to explore very young solar wind. The utilization of PSP data for this science topic is highly recommended.