# Solar wind <!-- SOLSIM:BEGIN g31 — Solar System explorer state (hand-built on wt-core, specs/solar/); do not hand-edit inside --> **Microsim — three.js (Wikitube framework):** *The edge of the heliosphere in the Solar System explorer* <div class="wt-sim" data-src="https://wikitube-3d-microsims.netlify.app/solar/Solar_System.html?obj=heliosphere&embed=1" data-title="The edge of the heliosphere in the Solar System explorer"></div> *The Solar System explorer locked on this article's state (`?obj=heliosphere`); every object and population of the [[PORTAL_Solar_System|Solar System portal]] has its own state in the same scene.* <!-- SOLSIM:END --> *Try: under show, choose clouds and boundaries to hide the planets and keep the heliosphere's shells, with the termination shock at 94 AU, the heliopause at 121 AU and the bow shock near 230 AU; switch the scale to true and scroll in until Neptune's orbit appears as a small ring about a third of the way out to the termination shock, the distance the solar wind covers supersonically; then drag the view round and note that the shells are drawn as simple nested surfaces, not the comet-like shape of the real heliosphere.* The **solar wind** is the stream of charged particles that flows continuously outward from the [[Sun]]'s corona into interplanetary space. It is a [[Plasma_(physics)|plasma]] made mostly of [[Electron|electrons]], [[Proton|protons]] and [[Alpha_particle|alpha particles]], with traces of heavier ions such as carbon, oxygen, neon and iron, and it carries the Sun's magnetic field with it as the interplanetary magnetic field.[^stanford-swcomp][^owens2013] Near [[Earth]] it typically moves at 250–750 km/s, with a few particles per cubic centimetre.[^noaa-rtsw] Eugene Parker predicted in 1958 that a corona at a million kelvin cannot sit in static equilibrium and must expand supersonically, and spacecraft confirmed the flow within a few years.[^parker1958][^neugebauer1962] The wind comes in slow and fast forms from different regions of the Sun, drives space weather at Earth, strips atmospheres from unmagnetised planets, shapes comet tails and blows the bubble of the [[Heliosphere|heliosphere]] into the [[Interstellar_medium|interstellar medium]]. The explorer at the top of this page shows that bubble's outer boundaries as the solar wind meets interstellar gas; the shells are ILLUSTRATIVE, drawn as simple surfaces at the distances where [[Voyager_1|Voyager 1]] crossed them.[^nasa-vim] ## History ### Observations from Earth On 1 September 1859 Richard Carrington and Richard Hodgson independently saw a white-light solar flare, and a severe geomagnetic storm followed within a day; Carrington suspected a connection, which is now explained by a coronal mass ejection reaching Earth.[^cliver2013] George FitzGerald later proposed that matter was regularly thrown off the Sun and reached Earth in a few days.[^meyervernet2007] Arthur Eddington suggested in 1910, in a footnote about Comet Morehouse, that particles streamed from the Sun.[^durham2006] Kristian Birkeland, from nearly continuous auroral activity, argued that Earth was constantly bombarded by electrically charged particles from the Sun and wrote in 1916 that they were probably of both signs; Frederick Lindemann made the same proposal in 1919.[^egeland2005][^birkeland1916][^lindemann1919] In the 1950s Ludwig Biermann noted that ion tails of [[Comet|comets]] always point away from the Sun, whatever the comet's direction of travel, and inferred a steady stream of solar particles pushing them.[^biermann1951] Sydney Chapman calculated that a million-degree corona conducts heat so well that it must reach beyond Earth's orbit.[^jacobsen1973] ### Theoretical prediction Parker combined these ideas. He argued that a hot, extended corona cannot be held static by gravity; as gravity weakens outward, pressure drives a flow that passes from subsonic to supersonic like gas in a de Laval nozzle.[^parker1958][^gombosi2018] One solution of his isothermal equations was a wind that accelerates through a critical point and continues outward supersonically, and the Sun's rotation winds the outflowing magnetic field into what is now called the Parker spiral.[^parker1958][^choudhuri2024] Two referees recommended rejection, but the editor, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, found no error and published the paper in 1958.[^rosner2022] Joseph Chamberlain's slower "solar breeze" solution of 1960 was later shown by Marco Velli to be unstable.[^chamberlain1960][^velli1994] ### Observations from space The Soviet probe Luna 1 detected the solar wind directly with ion traps in January 1959, and Marcia Neugebauer and Conway Snyder measured it continuously with Mariner 2 in 1962, finding slow and fast components.[^harvey2007][^nssdc-luna1][^neugebauer1962][^cranmer2019] Pneuman and Kopp produced the first numerical model of a corona with open and closed field lines in 1971.[^pneuman1971] Ulysses, launched in 1990, was the first mission to sample the wind far from the ecliptic.[^jpl-ulysses] In May 1999 ACE and Wind saw the wind's density at Earth fall by 98% for about two days, and Earth's magnetosphere swelled to five or six times its normal size.[^nasa1999] Voyager 1 found in December 2010 that the outward speed of the wind at its location had fallen to zero.[^nasa2010] Parker Solar Probe, launched in 2018 and the first NASA spacecraft named after a living person, is making ever closer passes through the corona to find how the wind is heated and accelerated.[^chang2018] ## Acceleration mechanism Heat alone cannot fully explain the wind. In the corona, above one million kelvin, thermal particle speeds follow a [[Maxwell–Boltzmann_distribution|Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution]] with a mean near 145 km/s, far below the Sun's escape speed of 618 km/s; only the fast tail of the distribution escapes directly.[^encrenaz2003] Electrons, being lighter, escape more easily, and the resulting electric field pulls ions outward after them.[^encrenaz2003] By the 1960s it was clear that an additional source of energy, probably magnetic, is needed to reach the observed speeds.[^ramaty1973] SOHO measurements in the late 1990s showed the fast wind accelerating much closer to the Sun than Parker's thermal model predicts.[^cranmer2019] The mass flux is small on solar scales. About 1.3 × 10³⁶ particles leave the Sun each second, a mass loss of about 2 × 10⁻¹⁴ solar masses per year, or roughly 1.3–1.9 million tonnes per second.[^kallenrode2004][^carroll1995] Taking 2 × 10⁻¹⁴ × 1.99 × 10³⁰ kg per year gives about 1.3 × 10⁹ kg/s (derived), and at that rate the Sun loses an Earth mass in roughly 150 million years.[^schrijver2000] Over its whole history the Sun has lost only about 0.01% of its mass this way.[^meyervernet2007] ### Jetlets Extreme-ultraviolet observations published in 2023 suggest that swarms of tiny, short-lived jets at the base of the corona, driven by small-scale magnetic reconnection, could supply much of the wind's plasma and Alfvén waves, and may be linked to switchbacks.[^raouafi2023] ### Fast and slow solar wind The slow wind, about 300 km/s near Earth at around 100,000 K, matches the corona in composition, is about twice as dense and is more variable; the fast wind averages about 750 km/s at around 800,000 K and resembles the photosphere in composition.[^esa-ulysses-speeds][^feldman2005][^geiss1995][^kallenrode2004] The fast wind flows from coronal holes, regions of open magnetic field most extensive near the poles, and emerges from funnels about 20,000 km above the photosphere.[^hassler1999][^marsch2005] The slow wind comes from the streamer belt near the equator, by processes still debated; near solar minimum it fills latitudes up to about 30–35°, and around maximum it appears at all latitudes.[^antiochos2011][^mccomas2003] ## Properties and structure ### Velocity and density At 1 AU the wind moves at 250–750 km/s with 3–10 particles per cubic centimetre and a temperature of 10⁴–10⁶ K.[^noaa-rtsw] Its density falls roughly with the square of distance, while its speed changes little beyond about 1 AU.[^borgazzi2009] At 400 km/s the wind crosses the 150 million km from the Sun to Earth in about 4.3 days (derived). Far out, the Voyager plasma-wave instruments found about 0.002 electrons per cubic centimetre in the outer heliosphere, rising about twentyfold beyond the heliopause.[^gurnett2019] ### Pressure At 1 AU the wind exerts a pressure of about 1 nPa.[^shue1998] The dynamic, or ram, pressure is P = m_p n V²; with n in particles per cubic centimetre and V in km/s, P ≈ 1.67 × 10⁻⁶ n V² nPa.[^dendy1995] A typical wind of 5 cm⁻³ at 400 km/s gives about 1.3 nPa (derived). ### Coronal mass ejection Coronal mass ejections are huge, fast clouds of magnetised plasma released by magnetic energy at the Sun, often but not always with flares; their shocks accelerate particles ahead of them.[^noaa-cme] A CME that strikes Earth's magnetosphere can cause a geomagnetic storm and aurora. Its structure, a turbulent compressed sheath followed by a cooler, strongly magnetised ejecta, governs how it affects the magnetosphere and radiation belts.[^tsurutani2006][^pokhotelov2016] Fast streams overtaking slow ones form corotating interaction regions, which disturb Earth more gently and recur with the Sun's rotation.[^tsurutani2006] ### Magnetic switchbacks Switchbacks are sudden, short reversals of the wind's magnetic field. Ulysses first recorded them, and Parker Solar Probe has found them abundant close to the Sun since 2018.[^nasa-switchbacks][^fisk2020] ## Solar System effects Over billions of years the wind has carried away much of the Sun's angular momentum, slowing its rotation.[^endal1981] It helps form comet tails, and its turbulence causes the twinkling of compact radio sources known as interplanetary scintillation.[^kerrod2000][^jokipii1973] ### Magnetospheres Around planets with strong magnetic fields, such as Earth, [[Jupiter]] and [[Saturn]], the [[Lorentz_force|Lorentz force]] deflects the wind into a cavity, the magnetosphere, blunt on the sunward side and drawn into a long tail behind.[^encrenaz2003] Its boundary, the magnetopause, lets some plasma through where field lines reconnect. Changes in the wind's pressure move Earth's magnetopause by several Earth radii, and the Cluster mission found that [[Kelvin–Helmholtz_instability|Kelvin–Helmholtz waves]] on the magnetopause also let solar wind plasma in.[^shue1998][^nasa-cluster] ### Atmospheres Planets without strong global fields lose atmosphere to the wind. [[Venus]] trails a tenuous ion tail that stretches as far as Earth's orbit.[^grunwaldt1997] At [[Mars]], NASA's MAVEN spacecraft measured in 2015 that the wind strips ions from the upper atmosphere at about 100 grams per second, a loss that grows during solar storms.[^nasa-maven] Earth's field diverts most of the wind; some particles are trapped in the radiation belts, and others reach the upper atmosphere in the auroral zones. ### Moons and planetary surfaces The [[Moon]] has neither atmosphere nor global field, so the wind strikes its surface directly, and its [[Regolith|regolith]] holds implanted solar wind gases, sampled by the Apollo foil collectors and possibly useful as resources.[^starukhina2006] ## Limits The solar wind has an inner and an outer boundary. Close to the Sun it is not yet a wind at all: the coronal plasma is still tied to the Sun's magnetic field and can communicate back down to the surface. Far out, it is stopped by the pressure of the interstellar gas.[^adhikari2019][^nasa-vim] ### Alfvén surface The Alfvén critical surface separates the corona, where magnetic waves can still carry information back to the Sun, from the wind, which moves faster than the Alfvén speed.[^adhikari2019][^deforest2014] Parker Solar Probe crossed it on 28 April 2021, at 18.8 solar radii.[^nasa-psp2021] ### Outer limits The wind inflates a bubble in the interstellar gas, and where its pressure can no longer push that gas back lies the [[Heliopause|heliopause]], far beyond [[Pluto]]. Voyager 1 passed the termination shock, where the wind drops below the speed of sound, in December 2004 at 94 AU, and the heliopause on 25 August 2012 at about 122 AU; Voyager 2 crossed the shock in August 2007 at 84 AU, about 10 AU closer, showing that the heliosphere is asymmetric.[^nasa-vim][^stone2008] The explorer draws the termination shock at 94 AU and the heliopause at 121 AU; at a steady 400 km/s, plasma leaving the Sun would take a little over a year to reach the shock (derived), and far longer to cross the slowed flow of the heliosheath beyond it. The Sun's gravitational reach extends much farther, to the [[Oort_cloud|Oort cloud]].[^nasa-svs12639] ## See also - [[Heliosphere]] - [[Heliopause]] - [[Interstellar_medium]] - [[Magnetohydrodynamics]] - Coronal mass ejection · Heliospheric current sheet · Parker Solar Probe ## References [^stanford-swcomp]: Stanford Solar Center. "Ask a solar physicist: what is the solar wind made of?". http://solar-center.stanford.edu/FAQ/Qsolwindcomp.html [^owens2013]: Owens, M. J.; Forsyth, R. J. (2013). "The heliospheric magnetic field". *Living Reviews in Solar Physics* 10: 5. https://doi.org/10.12942/lrsp-2013-5 [^noaa-rtsw]: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. "Real time solar wind". https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/real-time-solar-wind [^parker1958]: Parker, E. N. (1958). "Dynamics of the interplanetary gas and magnetic fields". *The Astrophysical Journal* 128: 664–676. https://doi.org/10.1086/146579 [^neugebauer1962]: Neugebauer, M.; Snyder, C. W. (1962). "Solar plasma experiment". *Science* 138: 1095–1097. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.138.3545.1095-a [^nasa-vim]: NASA Science. "Voyager: interstellar mission" (fetched 2026-09-18). https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/interstellar-mission/ [^cliver2013]: Cliver, E. W.; Dietrich, W. F. (2013). "The 1859 space weather event revisited: limits of extreme activity". *Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate* 3: A31. https://doi.org/10.1051/swsc/2013053 [^meyervernet2007]: Meyer-Vernet, N. (2007). *Basics of the Solar Wind*. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-81420-1. [^durham2006]: Durham, I. T. (2006). "Rethinking the history of solar wind studies: Eddington's analysis of Comet Morehouse". *Notes and Records of the Royal Society* 60: 261–270. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2006.0149 [^egeland2005]: Egeland, A.; Burke, W. J. (2005). *Kristian Birkeland: The First Space Scientist*. Springer, p. 80. ISBN 978-1-4020-3294-3. [^birkeland1916]: Birkeland, K. (1916). "Are the solar corpuscular rays that penetrate the Earth's atmosphere negative or positive rays?". *Videnskapsselskapets Skrifter, I Mat–Naturv. Klasse* No. 1, Christiania. [^lindemann1919]: Lindemann, F. A. (1919). *Philosophical Magazine*, series 6, 38(228): 674. [^biermann1951]: Biermann, L. (1951). 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(2004). *Space Physics: An Introduction to Plasmas and Particles in the Heliosphere and Magnetospheres*, 3rd ed. Springer. ISBN 978-3-540-20617-0. [^carroll1995]: Carroll, B. W.; Ostlie, D. A. (1995). *An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics*. Benjamin Cummings, p. 409. ISBN 978-0-201-54730-6. [^schrijver2000]: Schrijver, C. J.; Zwaan, C. (2000). *Solar and Stellar Magnetic Activity*. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-58286-5. [^raouafi2023]: Raouafi, N. E.; Stenborg, G.; Seaton, D. B.; et al. (2023). "Magnetic reconnection as the driver of the solar wind". *The Astrophysical Journal* 945: 28. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/acaf6c [^esa-ulysses-speeds]: European Space Agency. "Solar wind speeds". Ulysses science portal. https://sci.esa.int/web/ulysses/-/42902-solar-wind-speeds [^feldman2005]: Feldman, U.; Landi, E.; Schwadron, N. A. (2005). "On the sources of fast and slow solar wind". *Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics* 110: A07109. https://doi.org/10.1029/2004JA010918 [^geiss1995]: Geiss, J.; Gloeckler, G.; von Steiger, R. (1995). "Origin of the solar wind from composition data". *Space Science Reviews* 72: 49–60. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00768753 [^hassler1999]: Hassler, D. M.; Dammasch, I. E.; Lemaire, P.; et al. (1999). "Solar wind outflow and the chromospheric magnetic network". *Science* 283: 810–813. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.283.5403.810 [^marsch2005]: Tu, C.-Y.; Zhou, C.; Marsch, E.; et al. (2005). "Solar wind origin in coronal funnels". *Science* 308: 519–523. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1109447 [^antiochos2011]: Antiochos, S. K.; Mikić, Z.; Titov, V. S.; Lionello, R.; Linker, J. A. (2011). "A model for the sources of the slow solar wind". *The Astrophysical Journal* 731: 112. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/731/2/112 [^mccomas2003]: McComas, D. J.; Elliott, H. A.; Schwadron, N. A.; et al. (2003). "The three-dimensional solar wind around solar maximum". *Geophysical Research Letters* 30: 1517. https://doi.org/10.1029/2003GL017136 [^borgazzi2009]: Borgazzi, A.; Lara, A.; Echer, E.; Alves, M. V. (2009). "Dynamics of coronal mass ejections in the interplanetary medium". *Astronomy & Astrophysics* 498: 885–889. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/200811171 [^gurnett2019]: Gurnett, D. A.; Kurth, W. S. (2019). "Plasma densities near and beyond the heliopause from the Voyager 1 and 2 plasma wave instruments". *Nature Astronomy* 3: 1024–1028. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-019-0918-5 [^shue1998]: Shue, J.-H.; Song, P.; Russell, C. T.; et al. (1998). "Magnetopause location under extreme solar wind conditions". *Journal of Geophysical Research* 103: 17691–17700. https://doi.org/10.1029/98JA01103 [^dendy1995]: Dendy, R. (ed.) (1995). *Plasma Physics: An Introductory Course*. Cambridge University Press, p. 234. ISBN 978-0-521-48452-7. [^noaa-cme]: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. "Coronal mass ejections". https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/coronal-mass-ejections [^tsurutani2006]: Tsurutani, B. T.; Gonzalez, W. D.; Gonzalez, A. L. C.; et al. (2006). "Corotating solar wind streams and recurrent geomagnetic activity: a review". *Journal of Geophysical Research* 111: A07S01. https://doi.org/10.1029/2005JA011273 [^pokhotelov2016]: Pokhotelov, D.; Rae, I. J.; Murphy, K. R.; Mann, I. R. (2016). "Effects of ULF wave power on relativistic radiation belt electrons: 8–9 October 2012 geomagnetic storm". *Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics* 121. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JA023130 [^nasa-switchbacks]: Hatfield, M. (2021). "Switchbacks science: explaining Parker Solar Probe's magnetic puzzle". NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/switchbacks-science-explaining-parker-solar-probe-s-magnetic-puzzle [^fisk2020]: Fisk, L. A.; Kasper, J. C. (2020). "Global circulation of the open magnetic flux of the Sun". *The Astrophysical Journal Letters* 894: L4. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ab8acd [^endal1981]: Endal, A. S.; Sofia, S. (1981). "Rotation in solar-type stars. I. Evolutionary models for the spin-down of the Sun". *The Astrophysical Journal* 243: 625–640. https://doi.org/10.1086/158628 [^kerrod2000]: Kerrod, R. (2000). *Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors*. Lerner Publications. https://archive.org/details/asteroidscometsm00robi [^jokipii1973]: Jokipii, J. R. (1973). "Turbulence and scintillations in the interplanetary plasma". *Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics* 11: 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.aa.11.090173.000245 [^nasa-cluster]: NASA (2012). "NASA study using Cluster reveals new insights into solar wind". Goddard Space Flight Center. [^grunwaldt1997]: Grünwaldt, H.; Neugebauer, M.; Hilchenbach, M.; et al. (1997). "Venus tail ray observation near Earth". *Geophysical Research Letters* 24: 1163–1166. https://doi.org/10.1029/97GL01159 [^nasa-maven]: NASA (2015). "NASA mission reveals speed of solar wind stripping Martian atmosphere". http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-mission-reveals-speed-of-solar-wind-stripping-martian-atmosphere [^starukhina2006]: Starukhina, L. V. (2006). "Polar regions of the Moon as a potential repository of solar-wind-implanted gases". *Advances in Space Research* 37: 50–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2005.04.033 [^adhikari2019]: Adhikari, L.; Zank, G. P.; Zhao, L.-L. (2019). "Does turbulence turn off at the Alfvén critical surface?". *The Astrophysical Journal* 876: 26. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab141c [^deforest2014]: DeForest, C. E.; Howard, T. A.; McComas, D. J. (2014). "Inbound waves in the solar corona: a direct indicator of Alfvén surface location". *The Astrophysical Journal* 787: 124. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/787/2/124 [^nasa-psp2021]: Hatfield, M. (2021). "NASA enters the solar atmosphere for the first time, bringing new discoveries". NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/nasa-enters-the-solar-atmosphere-for-the-first-time-bringing-new-discoveries [^stone2008]: Stone, E. C.; Cummings, A. C.; McDonald, F. B.; et al. (2008). "An asymmetric solar wind termination shock". *Nature* 454: 71–74. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07022 [^nasa-svs12639]: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio (2017). "Where is the edge of the Solar System?". https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12639 ## Further reading - Meyer-Vernet, N. (2007). *Basics of the Solar Wind*. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-81420-1. - Parker, E. N. (1958). "Dynamics of the interplanetary gas and magnetic fields". *The Astrophysical Journal* 128: 664–676. https://doi.org/10.1086/146579 ## External links - NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center: real-time solar wind — https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/real-time-solar-wind - NASA Parker Solar Probe — https://science.nasa.gov/mission/parker-solar-probe/ - ESA Solar Orbiter — https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Solar_Orbiter ## Wikipedia : Wikitube **Strict pair:** [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind) : [Wikitube](https://en.wikitube.io/wiki/Solar_wind) · pinned revision [1372320888](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1372320888) · 2026-09-18 ## Previous hub tags Hubs: `Life_Physics`. Portals: [[PORTAL_Solar_System]]. --- *Solar System portal child articles, wave 1 · 2026-09-18 · drafted · row SOL-044 · explorer state `?obj=heliosphere`.* <!-- hub_tags: Life_Physics · PORTAL_Solar_System -->