From the Heliosphere to the Local Bubble: The Local Interstellar Medium

<p>This book has two major objectives. The first is to summarize our present knowledge of the local interstellar medium (LISM) from its interactions with the heliosphere and astrospheres to the Local Bubble. The second is to identify the morphological complexity, inhomogeneity, and other physical properties seen in the LISM that likely occur elsewhere in the Milky Way and other galaxies but cannot be studied by observations for lack of spatial resolution and brightness for high-resolution spectroscopy. This knowledge can then be applied to more distant interstellar media. While the LISM likely does not contain the full range of properties seen in the ISM elsewhere in the Galaxy, it does include a wide range of properties and physical processes found elsewhere in the Galaxy. The new observational data from the Hubble Space Telescope, Voyager missions, IBEX spacecraft, and GAIA, together with major theoretical developments, are making great strides in resolving the complex structure of the LISM, including its history and the physical processes that control it. Now is an opportune time to describe the local interstellar medium from our inside perspective.</p>