British astronomers from Northumbria University have discovered where “slow” solar winds, streams of charged particles moving at speeds of less than 500 kilometers per second, come from. The research was published in the scientific journal magazine Nature Astronomy (NatAstro).
The solar wind represents stellar plasma constantly flowing through the star’s corona at a speed of 300 to 1.2 thousand kilometers per second. The difference between the speeds of the fast and slow solar winds is thought to arise from different regions of the atmosphere where the solar corona, the outermost layer, originates.
The team used data from the Solar Orbiter spacecraft equipped with remote sensing capabilities, as well as a variety of scientific instruments, to collect and analyze plasma samples.
By combining photographic and instrumental data, scientists were able to more clearly determine where the slow solar wind was coming from for the first time. This helped understand how it could separate from the Sun and begin its journey into the heliosphere, the giant bubble around the Sun and its planets that protects the Solar System from interstellar radiation.
The team was able to analyze the activity occurring on the Sun’s surface and then compare it to solar wind fluxes collected by the space probe. They were able to detect slow wind currents coming from the region where open and closed coronas meet. This supports the theory that slow winds can emerge from closed magnetic field lines.
“Each region of the Sun may have a unique combination of heavy ions that determine the chemical composition of the solar wind flow. Because the chemical composition of the solar wind remains constant as it propagates throughout the solar system, we use these ions to determine the origin of a particular solar wind flow in the lower part of the Sun’s atmosphere.” “We can use it as a trace,” he said. The authors of the study are Professor Susan Lepri.
Previously on Sun discovered unique plasma tsunami.
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Source: Gazeta
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