International Space Science Institute ISSI

📊 In 2025, ISSI organised 69 events and welcomed 964 visitors from all over the world — 479 of them joining us for the very first time. ✨

Our 2025 Annual Report is here, and for the first time, it's fully digital! Dive into all our activities, highlights, and results.

👉 Here you can explore the digital report https://www.issibern.ch/annualreport/2025/

https://youtu.be/SfcJQABwmB4?si=_r35KboIZnLCtSCZ

ISSI 2025 Another year, another milestone! 💫ISSI's 2025 Annual Report is he...

"Excitation and Dissipation of Kinetic-scale Fluctuations in Space Plasmas" is the focus of this week's ISSI International Team #612, led by Kristopher Klein and Daniel Verscharen.

The team’s main aim is to connect high-resolution measurements of particle velocity distributions from missions such as , , and MMS with modern kinetic theory, machine-learning methods, and nonlinear simulations.

This matters because these small-scale processes control how energy is transferred between particles and electromagnetic fields, shaping the heating, transport, and large-scale evolution of collisionless plasmas such as the solar wind, planetary magnetospheres, and in more distant astrophysical systems.

A key expected outcome is a set of observation-driven models that connect measured velocity distributions to the growth, damping, and global impact of kinetic-scale fluctuations. 🌟

We are thrilled to introduce Prof. Elena Sabbi as ISSI's new Director! 🌟

Elena brings nearly two decades of experience at the Space Telescope Science Institute, including leading the Wide Field Camera 3 on Hubble and the JWST NIRSpec team, and most recently served as Chief Scientist of the International Gemini Observatory. She is also appointed Associate Professor for Space Sciences at the University of Bern International.

Her research on the formation and evolution of massive stellar clusters, combined with her passion for accessibility in science, makes her a perfect fit for ISSI's mission. Elena joins the Directorate, complementing Antonella Nota, Michael Rast, and Thierry Dudok de Wit, on August 1, 2026.

Welcome, Elena! 🔭

Get to know Elena here:

Introducing Elena Sabbi: ISSI’s New Director Meet Elena Sabbi, the new addition to ISSI. Discover her vision and expertise in stellar dynamics and observatory discussions.

Huge congratulations to Amina Helmi, member of the ISSI Board of Trustees, on receiving the 2026 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics!

Amina, together with Vasily Belokurov and Rodrigo Ibata, has revealed that our Milky Way was built through Billions of years of cosmic collisions, uncovering the fossil evidence written in stellar streams across the sky. Breathtaking science that has truly shaped our understanding of the history of our galaxy.

We at ISSI are so proud to call Amina part of our community, and this honour is a wonderful recognition of a remarkable scientific journey. From galactic archaeology to mapping the invisible scaffolding of dark matter, your work continues to inspire.

Warmest congratulations, Amina! 🏅✨

Incoherent Scatter – An Invaluable Tool in the Field of Space and Plasma Physics

For >70 years, incoherent scatter radars have been the gold standard in remote sensing for ionospheric plasma physics and upper atmospheric coupling, yet there is no unified textbook. The "Incoherent Scatter" working group - led by Lisa Baddeley, Lindsay V. Goodwin and Gareth Perry - is fixing that by building a modern and thorough guide to this technique and is meeting at ISSI this week.

Find out more: https://collab.issibern.ch/incoherentscatter/

🔭 This week at ISSI (8–12 June 2026), we are hosting the International Team working on "Active Region Evolution Under the Spotlight, with Unprecedented Coordinated High-Resolution Stereoscopic Observations and Numerical Simulations" led by Krzysztof Barczynski (ETH ZUrich & PMOD/WRC, Switzerland)

The solar atmosphere is a unique plasma laboratory where energy and mass transfer happen at the smallest scales, which can be resolved using unprecedented high-resolution observations. The team's aim is to understand the connection between the finest details and largest structures in the solar atmosphere using coordinated observations of the highest resolution instruments. Using novel observations of the Sun from multiple viewpoints in space and on Earth, they could trace plasma flows in the corona in unprecedented detail.

Here you find more details and first results: https://teams.issibern.ch/activeregionevolution/

Sprites, Elves, and Giants: Lightning’s Strange Family in the Upper Atmosphere

Webinar with Alejandro Luque (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Spain)

At a global flash rate of roughly 44 lightning strokes per second, thunderstorms represent one of Earth's most powerful electrical engines. Yet the electromagnetic consequences of lightning extend far beyond what is visible to the naked eye at ground level.
At altitudes between 40 and 100 km - in the mesosphere and lower ionosphere - lightning drives a class of optical phenomena known as Transient Luminous Events (TLEs). Sprites, elves, jets and their variants are not mere curiosities: they are manifestations of electrical discharge physics operating in a low-pressure plasma regime that cannot be replicated in laboratory conditions.

What physical mechanisms govern their initiation and morphology? How do they couple the troposphere to the mesosphere and ionosphere? And what do they reveal about large-scale charge transfer processes in Earth's atmosphere?
This webinar traces the evolution of our understanding of TLEs — from their serendipitous discovery to current modelling efforts — and maps out the open questions that continue to drive research in this field.
Missed it live? The full recording is available to rewatch:

Sprites, Elves, and Giants: Lightning’s Strange Family in the Upper Atmosphere with Alejandro Luque About 44 times per second a lighting stroke hits out planet. As one of the most awe-inspiring phenomena in nature, we are all deeply familiar with the immedi...