= John D. Richardson
{c}
<John D. Richardson> studies space <plasmas>, including the <solar wind> and its interaction with the <interstellar medium>. MIT identifies him as a principal investigator of the Voyager plasma experiment and describes earlier work on plasma transport in planetary <magnetospheres>.https://www.space.mit.edu/people/john-richardson/[MIT Kavli Institute, John Richardson, research biography]{ref}
His 2008 <Voyager 2> study analyzed plasma measurements across the <termination shock>. The thermal ions were cooler than a simple picture of bulk-flow energy becoming thermal-ion heat would suggest. The result made the partition of energy among particle populations central to understanding the shock.<Cool heliosheath plasma and deceleration of the upstream solar wind at the termination shock by John D. Richardson and others>[Nature 454, 63–66, abstract and author-contribution statement: plasma analysis and shock-energy interpretation]{ref}
The experiment illustrates how a remote boundary becomes a local measurement. Four <Faraday cups> sampled particle currents over energy-per-charge ranges; combining differently oriented detectors allowed the team to infer <plasma density>, flow and <temperature>. These inferred properties depend on the measured spectra and distribution model, rather than being direct readings of a thermometer.<Plasma temperature distributions in the heliosheath by J. D. Richardson>[Sections 2–3: four Faraday cups and proton spectral fitting]{ref}
\Image[https://www.space.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/fly-images/455/John-Richardson-408x370-cc.jpeg]
{title=<John D. Richardson>, portrait identified by the MIT Kavli Institute}
{description=External image linked from the institutional researcher profile.}
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