Staff spotlight: Dr Christopher Chen

Dr Chen’s research interests are in space plasma physics, in particular the solar wind and the variety of processes that occur within it. The solar wind is created as material from the Sun is continually propelled into interplanetary space - this material is so hot that the majority of its particles are ionised, forming a plasma that displays a rich variety of complex behaviour. Christopher’s research involves the analysis of this data, along with theoretical and computational models, to understand its behaviour and address some of the outstanding problems in plasma astrophysics. 

Christopher is involved in several space missions, including: 

Parker Solar Probe (PSP): PSP was launched in August 2018 and is traveling to within 9 solar radii from the Sun's surface - the first spacecraft to fly through the solar corona - to directly sample the solar wind at its birth. With this data, we will be able to investigate the role played by turbulence and other processes in the heating of the corona and generation of the solar wind. 

Interstellar Probe (ISP): ISP is a mission concept in Study Phase being designed to explore the outer edges of heliosphere and the interstellar plasma. If selected for launch, ISP will become the furthest operating spacecraft from Earth representing humanities frontier of space exploration. 

Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS): MMS is a group of four closely-spaced spacecraft launched in 2015 to study magnetic reconnection and other kinetic plasma processes in and around the Earth's magnetosphere.