G. Mann
Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, An der Sternwarte 16,
D-14482 Potsdam, Germany
The heliosphere with the Sun at its center is a giant particle accelerator in space. Particles are accelerated at different places in the heliosphere. Solar flares play an important role. During flares a huge amount of energy is suddenly released and partly transfered into the production of energetic particles. But shocks, as e.g. shocks in the solar corona, traveling interplanetary shocks, planetary bow shocks, shocks related with corotating interaction regions, and the termination shock of the heliosphere are also sources of energetic particles. Furthermore, energetic particles are also generated in planetary magnetospheres. All these processes are very important from the astrophysical point of view, since these processes of particle acceleration occur also at other stellar atmospheres, supernova remnants, galactic jets, pulsar, and active galactic nuclei, but nowhere they can be studied in such datail as in the heliosphere, especially by the spacecraft.