Space Physics

Welcome to the Space Physics group at the University of Bergen. Our group investigates fundamental science of the interaction between Earth and its near space. We branch out towards atmospheric and climate sciences, high-energy astrophysics, and geomagnetism. We have active projects towards space weather and computational science. Our group has strong synergies between space hardware development and science goals, exemplified by our key roles in a series of space missions.

Photo: Illustration of the Sun and Earth's magnetosphere

Affiliation

About the research group

Space Physics has been a cornerstone of our department since the 1960s. Currently, our research activity is focusing on four key topics:

Dynamics of the Asymmetric Geospace
Energetic Particle Precipitation
Hard Radiation from Thunderstorms
Space Plasma Physics and Space Weather.

From 2013 to 2023 we led a Centre of Excellence called the Birkeland Centre for Space Science (external link) (BCSS) (PI Prof. N. Østgaard) that was funded by the Research Council of Norway. See the BCSS 10-year report (external link) for highlights.

Group photo of people in the Birkeland Centre for Space Science — Photo: Christer van der Meeren (2023)

Our team is diverse, with more than 50% from other countries. It shows the research field’s international standing and our attractiveness. Our team is multidisciplinary, with high academic impact internationally and an engineering component of delivering space hardware for ground-breaking science.

Our students often receive prestigious awards at international meetings hosted by the American Geophysical Union (external link) (AGU) and European Geosciences Union (external link) (EGU). All our professors, researchers and postdocs are involved in student supervision, group development, proposal preparation, and leadership responsibilities.

Education

Our group offers courses in Space Physics. We are actively involved in bachelor courses at our department. Our professors and researchers supervise postdocs, PhD and Master students. During BCSS (2013-2023) the group delivered more than 30 Master's and 19 PhD theses.

The following two courses are mandatory for all Master students in Space Physics:

PHYS251 – The Near Earth Space (10 ECTS, spring term)
PHYS252 - Experimental Methods in Space Physics (10 ECTS, autumn term)

Our group also offers the following courses to our Master's and PhD students:

PHYS350 - Space Plasma Physics (10 ECTS, irregular)
PHYS352 - Selected Topics in Ionospheric Physics (10 ECTS, irregular)

Several of our students have also gained unique fieldwork experience at UNIS (external link) in Svalbard, where there is a portfolio of highly relevant Arctic Geophysics courses (external link) for Master and PhD students:

AGF-301/AGF-801 The Upper Polar Atmosphere (15 ECTS, spring term)
AGF-304/AGF-801 Radar Diagnostics of Space Plasma (15 ECTS, spring term)
AGF-345/AGF-845 Polar Magnetospheric Substorms (10 ECTS, autumn term)

Key Activities

Illustration of ASIM, ALOFT, SMILE and EISCAT 3D — Photo: ESA, NASA and EISCAT

The Space Physics Group has been involved in various space missions and instrumentation projects. Some of the ongoing projects are listed below.

ASIM (external link) - The Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) is a space mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) dedicated to the observation of Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGF) and Transient Luminous Events (TLE). TLEs and TGFs are very short transient events taking place in the Earth upper atmosphere and associated to thunderstorm and lightning activity. ASIM is mounted on the Columbus module on the International Space Station (ISS) and is operational since 2018. ASIM comprises one large X- and gamma-ray detector and three photometers and two optical cameras. ASIM is a collaboration between the Danish Technical University, Denmark, University of Bergen, Norway and University of Valencia, Spain. The detector layers and front-end electronics of MXGS were designed and built by our Space instrumentation group. Our group has access to all ASIM data and is actively performing research on TGFs, TLEs and cosmic Gamma-ray Bursts (GRB).

ALOFT - The Airborne Lightning Observatory for FEGS and TGFs (ALOFT) is a unique aircraft campaign to advance the science of high-energy radiation emissions from thunderstorms. ALOFT is a collaboration between NASA, UiB and several other institutions in Europe and the USA. Our Space Physics group has led the campaign, in collaboration with NASA. The campaign was successfully carried out in July 2023, for a total of 60 flight hours in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. The scientific payload flew on a NASA ER-2 research aircraft at 20 km altitude above thunderclouds. The payload included a suite of gamma-ray detectors, and a complete suite of instruments for the characterization of the electrical and optical activity, and the thundercloud environment. The ALOFT results have revolutionized our understanding of high-energy atmospheric phenomena. Our group is leading this research activity with two prestigious publications in Nature (Marisaldi et al., 2024 (external link); Østgaard et al., 2024 (external link)).

EISCAT 3D (external link) - The EISCAT organization is currently installing an advanced high-power three-dimensional imaging radar system for atmospheric, ionospheric and near-Earth space investigations. EISCAT 3d is a fully steerable, tri-static, phased-array incoherent scatter radar system in northern Norway, Sweden and Finland. EISCAT 3D is the most advanced radar ever built in the auroral zone. In the coming years it will revolutionize our understanding of key plasma processes in the upper polar atmosphere. Our group is a key member of the national consortium EISCAT 3D Norway (external link). We have several funded projects to develop advanced software and analysis tools for EISCAT 3D data.

SMILE (external link) - The Solar Wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) mission is a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS). Launch is planned in 2026. A key instrument onboard SMILE is the Soft X-ray Imager (SXI), which will provide unprecedented images of the entry of plasma from the Solar Wind into the Earth’s magnetosphere. Our group has developed and delivered a Radiation Shutter to protect the SXI instrument against fatal exposure during spacecraft maneuvers and crossings of the Earth’s radiation belt. Our group is actively involved in SMILE several working groups, and ground-breaking new understanding of solar wind – magnetosphere – ionosphere coupling is expected in the coming years.

The group supports several other space missions like SWARM (external link) (ESA), EZIE (external link) (NASA), MMS (external link) (NASA), TRACERS (external link) (NASA), and ground installations like EISCAT 3D (external link) and the Kjell Henriksen Observatory (external link).

Space Weather - UiB also participates in the ESA Space Weather network and other parallel activities.