A Craft Has Flown Close Enough to The Sun to Detect The Source of Elusive Solar Winds

Science Alert ^ | June 8, 2023 | Michelle Starr

[SunkenCiv]

In November 2021, the Parker Solar Probe skimmed within a more-than-hair-singeing 8.5 million kilometers (5.3 million miles) of the Sun, a feat enabling it to detect the fine structure of the solar wind as it gusted tons of charged particles out into the Solar System through a hole in the Sun's corona, or atmosphere.

The probe's readings give us the closest look yet at how the fast solar wind is generated, suggesting that a specific type of magnetic reconnection is what drives this powerful force of nature, according to a team of physicists led by Stuart Bale of the University of California, Berkeley, and James Drake of the University of Maryland, College Park...

Coronal holes sound a bit worrying, but they're a normal solar phenomenon. The Sun is a magnetic mess, as you can see in the visualization below, and a lot of the changes in its magnetic field manifest as phenomena in the corona. A coronal hole happens when, rather than forming closed loops, the magnetic field lines open and expand outward.

The result is a patch of cooler, less dense plasma in the corona. You won't be able to see it just by looking at the Sun (not that you ought to look at the Sun without eye protection, don't do that), but it will show up much darker in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths.

From these regions emerge powerful solar winds. Untrammeled by the usual magnetic fields, these winds gust into space at up to around 800 kilometers (500 miles) per second, twice as fast as the average solar wind.

It blows charged particles far into the Solar System; here on Earth, they can interact with our upper atmosphere to generate spectacular auroras and interfere with satellite operations and radio communications.

[Track9]

When I told them the sun was up THERE —>, it was like watching a circuitboard fry.

[SunkenCiv]

:^)