This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the physics of the space environment for graduate students and interested researchers. The text is based on graduate level courses I taught in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences of the University of Michigan College of Engineering. These courses were intended to provide a broad introduction to the physics of solar—planetary relations (or space weather, as we have started to call this discipline more recently).

The courses on the upper atmosphere and on the solar wind and magnetosphere have been taught for a long period of time by many of my friends and colleagues here at Michigan before I was fortunate enough to teach them. I greatly benefited from discussions with Drs. Thomas M. Donahue, Lennard A. Fisk, and Andrew F. Nagy here at the University of Michigan and Drs. Thomas E. Cravens (University of Kansas), Jack T. Gosling (Los Alamos National Laboratory), and József Kóta (University of Arizona). I am grateful for their advise, criticism, and physical insight.

I would also like to acknowledge the constructive criticism of Konstantin Kabin, my graduate student here at the University of Michigan. His mathematical rigor and helpful suggestions greatly helped me in producing the final version of the manuscript.