solar wind

     

The solar win is a stream of charged particles—a plasma—that are ejected from the upper atmosphere of the sun. It consists mostly of electrons and protons with energies of about 1 keV. These particles are able to escape the sun's gravity, in part because of the high temperature of the corona, but also because of high kinetic energy that particles gain through a process that is not well-understood at this time.

Trivia about solar wind

  • The Earth is surrounded by the magnetosphere, which is shaped by this particle stream
  • The Hinode mission showed magnetic waves are critical in driving the flow of charged particles called this wind
  • Streaming out of coronal holes, it causes comet tails to point away from the sun
  • The Earth's magnetic field interacts with this flow of charged particles from the sun to produce the Aurora
  • By the time this flow of gasses from the sun reaches Earth, its speed may be 1-2 million mph; what a blowhard!
  • Consisting of a continuous flow of gases from the sun, its top speed may reach 2.25 million miles per hour
  • When the Earth's magnetosphere interacts with this flow of charged particles from the sun, auroras are produced

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