Solar orbiter speed7/30/2023 ![]() He said: “From HELIOS data we could see what might be ‘spikes’ of faster solar wind, and now we have been able to confirm their existence in striking detail with Parker Solar Probe. Professor Tim Horbury from Imperial’s Department of Physics is a co-investigator on Parker Solar Probe’s FIELDS instrument, which is led by the University of California, Berkeley. The finding builds on data from the HELIOS missions, launched in the 1970s, the previous record-holders for the closest approach to the Sun. Parker Solar Probe flew through several ‘switchbacks’ – tubes of fast solar wind emerging from coronal holes in the Sun’s upper atmosphere. These events last only a couple of minutes but release lots of energy, accelerating the solar wind away in long tubes that are approximately the diameter of the Earth. The new research suggests that the spikes are generated by ‘magnetic reconnection’ near the Sun, a process that pulls on the tense lines of the Sun’s magnetic field creates folds or ‘switchbacks’. Now, an international team have shown that bursty ‘spikes’ of solar wind originate in holes in the Sun’s outer atmosphere near its equator, and are accelerated by magnetic phenomena as they flow away into deep space and past the Earth. It is responsible for the North and Southern lights, but can also cause disruption during violent episodes like solar flares and coronal mass ejections, knocking out power grids and satellites. The solar wind is a stream of charged particles released by the Sun that fills our Solar System. We could see what might be ‘spikes’ of faster solar wind, and now we have been able to confirm their existence in striking detail with Parker Solar Probe Professor Tim Horbury Its first results are published today in a series of four papers in Nature, with Imperial College London scientists among those interpreting some of the key data to reveal how the solar wind is accelerated away from the surface of the Sun. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe was launched in August 2018. The Parker Solar Probe spacecraft, which has flown closer to the Sun than any mission before, has found new evidence of the origins of the solar wind. Credit: Ronan Laker/GONG/NASA/HelioPy/PFSSPy ![]() 'Switchbacks' of faster solar wind emerge from coronal holes near the Sun's equator.
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