{"id":1715,"date":"2022-01-21T23:47:59","date_gmt":"2022-01-21T23:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aurorasaurudev.wpengine.com\/?p=1715"},"modified":"2023-12-26T21:43:34","modified_gmt":"2023-12-26T21:43:34","slug":"daily-double-solar-wind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/?p=1715","title":{"rendered":"Daily Double: Solar Wind"},"content":{"rendered":"

We were excited to see \u201cwhat is the solar wind\u201d featured recently as a Daily Double on <\/span>JEOPARDY!<\/span><\/i> While the contestant missed the answer (oops!) it raises a valid point: the solar wind is an often misunderstood thing, and can be challenging to communicate. In this blog post, we\u2019ll pull together some resources so that when it next comes up, you\u2019ll be the first with the answer!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Still from JEOPARDY! December 29, 2021. The solar wind\u2019s typical speed of 400 km\/s is equal to 249 miles per second, or 894,775 miles per hour. That\u2019s about 50 times faster than a rocket!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to NASA\u2019s <\/span>Heliopedia<\/span><\/a>, the solar wind is a <\/span>gusty stream of material<\/span><\/a> that flows from the <\/span>Sun<\/span><\/a> in all directions, all the time, carrying the Sun\u2019s <\/span>magnetic field<\/span><\/a> out into space. While it is much less dense than wind on Earth, it is much faster, typically blowing at speeds of one to two million miles per hour (about 447 to 894 km\/s). The <\/span>solar wind<\/span><\/a> is made of charged particles \u2014 electrons and ionized atoms \u2014 that interact with one another and the Sun\u2019s magnetic field. The extent of the solar wind creates the \u201cheliosphere,\u201d the Sun\u2019s region of influence within interstellar space. (Pro tip: You might see the solar wind\u2019s magnetic field called the \u201cinterplanetary magnetic field\u201d or \u201cIMF\u201d for short.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Windlike<\/a>
Caption:\u00a0 An artist\u2019s animation of the solar wind. Credit:\u00a0 NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab\/Adriana Manrique Gutierrez<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Origin Story<\/b><\/h2>\n

The <\/span>Heliopedia<\/span><\/a> tells us that the Sun’s dynamic upper atmosphere is called the corona. It is filled with plasma, whose movements are governed by the tangle of magnetic fields emanating from the Sun. Temperatures in the corona can reach up to millions of degrees.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In their book, <\/span>Storms From the Sun: The Emerging Science of Space Weather<\/span><\/i><\/a>, Michael Carlowicz and Ramon Lopez explain, \u201cthe electrified plasma of the solar wind flows out of the [Sun\u2019s] corona like water gushing through cracks in a dam. The solar wind essentially seeps out through the edges of honeycomb-shaped patterns in the surface of the Sun, escaping around the edges of large convection cells bubbling up from the interior.\u201d They give an example by Dr. Helen Mason: \u201cIf you think of these cells as paving stones in a patio, then the solar wind is breaking through like grass around the edges, concentrated in the corners where the paving stones meet.\u201d (Carlowicz and Lopez, p. 82).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n