solar wind Archives

December 6, 2021December 6, 2021 by Evan Gough

Did the Earth’s Water Come From the Sun?

The sun, solar winds and asteroid Itokawa. Image Credit: Curtin University.

Where did Earth’s water come from? Comets may have brought some of it. Asteroids may have brought some. Icy planetesimals may have played a role by crashing into the young Earth and depositing their water. Hydrogen from inside the Earth may have contributed, too. Another hypothesis states the collision that formed the Moon gave Earth its water.

There’s evidence to back up all of these hypotheses.

But new research suggests that the Sun and its Solar Wind may have helped delivered some water, too.

June 9, 2021June 8, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

There are Particles of 4.5 Billion-Year-old Solar Wind Trapped Inside the Earth

Visualization of the solar wind encountering Earth's magnetic "defenses" known as the magnetosphere. Clouds of southward-pointing plasma are able to peel back layers of the Sun-facing bubble and stack them into layers on the planet's nightside (center, right). The layers can be squeezed tightly enough to reconnect and deliver solar electrons (yellow sparkles) directly into the upper atmosphere to create the aurora. Credit: JPL

Scientists have found the unmistakable presence of certain isotopes in an iron meteorite. Since these meteorites are thought to leftover bits of planetary cores, similar isotopes must be in the Earth’s own core. And the only place to get those isotopes is from the solar wind.

March 11, 2021March 9, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

Researchers Discover the Source of the Sun’s Most Dangerous High-Energy Particles

Sometimes the sun spits out high-energy particles which slam into the Earth, potentially disrupting our sensitive electronics. New research has found that these particles originate in the plasma of the sun itself, and are trapped there by strong magnetic fields. When those fields weaken, the particles blast out.

February 12, 2021February 12, 2021 by David Dickinson

ESA’s Solar Orbiter ‘Hides’ Behind the Sun

A deep-space mission is about to pull a ‘vanishing act,’ through mid-February, as the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter (affectionately known as ‘SolO’ to mission controllers) makes a crucial pass behind the Sun.

February 3, 2021February 3, 2021 by Evan Gough

The Earth’s Magnetosphere Might be Creating Water on the Moon

Artist’s depiction of the Moon in the magnetosphere, with “Earth wind” made up of flowing oxygen ions (gray) and hydrogen ions (bright blue), which can react with the lunar surface to create water. The Moon spends >75% of its orbit in the solar wind (yellow), which is blocked by the magnetosphere the rest of the time. Credit: E. Masongsong, UCLA EPSS, NASA GSFC SVS.

There’s no doubt that the Moon has water on its surface. Orbiters have spotted deposits of ice persisting in the perpetual shadows of polar craters. And recent research shows that water exists in sunlit parts of the Moon, too.

Over the years, scientists have presented evidence that the Moon’s water came from comets, from asteroids, from inside the Moon, and even from the Sun.

But now new research is pointing the finger directly at Earth as the source of some of the Moon’s water.

November 13, 2020November 13, 2020 by Matt Williams

Venus Held Onto its Water Surprisingly Well During its History

Artist's impression of Venus with the solar wind flowing around the planet, which has little magnetic protection. Venus Express found that a lot of water has bled into space over the years from the planet, which happens when the sun's ultraviolet radiation breaks oxygen and hydrogen molecules apart and pushes them into space. Credit: ESA - C. Carreau

Named for the ancient goddess of fertility, the planet Venus could not be more hostile to life as we know it. Aside from being the hottest planet in the Solar System, Venus has also an atmosphere that is 92 times denser than Earth’s, and regularly experiences sulfuric acid rain. But as we’ve learned from multiple surveys, Venus was once a much milder climate and even had vast oceans on its surface.

For astronomers and geologists alike, the burning question is, how much of its water did Venus hold onto during this massive transition? According to research presented by Moa Persson of the Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF), Venus actually retained most of its water over the past 4 billion years. Contrary to what researchers previously thought, Venus lost only a small amount of its water to a runaway Greenhouse Effect.

August 7, 2020August 7, 2020 by Evan Gough

This is What the Solar System Really Looks Like

An updated model suggests the shape of the Sun’s bubble of influence, the heliosphere (seen in yellow), may be a deflated croissant shape, rather than the long-tailed comet shape suggested by other research. Credits: Opher, et al

At first glance, it looks like something from an alien autopsy. A strange organ cut from a xenomorph’s thorax, under the flickering lights of an operating room in a top secret government facility, with venous tendrils dangling down to the floor, dripping viscous slime. (X-Com anyone?)

But no, it’s just our Solar System.

July 14, 2020July 14, 2020 by Matthew Cimone

Time-Lapse Video Reveals 10 Years of the Sun’s Life Crushed into One Stellar Hour

I forget the Sun is a star.

I think we all do sometimes. It’s easy to take for granted. The Sun is that glowing thing that rises in the morning and sets in the evening that we don’t generally pay attention to as we go about our day. However, there are these rare moments when we’re reminded that the Sun is truly a STAR – a titanic living sphere of hydrogen smashing plasma a million times the volume of Earth. One of those rare moments for me was standing in the shadow of the 2017 solar eclipse. We had driven down from Vancouver to Madras, Oregon to watch this astronomical freak of nature. A moon hundreds of times smaller than the Sun, but hundreds of times closer, covers the face of the Sun for the majesty of a STAR to be revealed; the fiery maelstrom of the Sun’s atmosphere visible to the naked eye.

Matt Eclipse 2.jpg — Sun’s corona visible to the naked eye in the shadow of the Moon during the 2017 Solar Eclipse as seen from Madras, Oregon c. Paul Muzzin / Matthew Cimone

May 29, 2020May 29, 2020 by Evan Gough

Mars Doesn’t Have Much of a Magnetosphere, But Here’s a Map

This image is from a scientific visualization of the electric currents around Mars. Electric currents (blue and red arrows) envelop Mars in a nested, double-loop structure that wraps continuously around the planet from its day side to its night side. These current loops distort the solar wind magnetic field (not pictured), which drapes around Mars to create an induced magnetosphere around the planet. In the process, the currents electrically connect Mars’ upper atmosphere and the induced magnetosphere to the solar wind, transferring electric and magnetic energy generated at the boundary of the induced magnetosphere (faint inner paraboloid) and at the solar wind bow shock (faint outer paraboloid). Credits: NASA/Goddard/MAVEN/CU Boulder/SVS/Cindy Starr

Even though Earthling scientists are studying Mars intently, it’s still a mysterious place.

One of the striking things about Mars is all of the evidence, clearly visible on its surface, that it harbored liquid water. Now, all that water is gone, and in fact, liquid water couldn’t survive on the surface of the Red Planet. Not as the planet is now, anyway.

But it could harbour water in the past. What happened?

March 27, 2020March 28, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

The heliosphere looks a lot weirder than we originally thought

A model of the heliosphere as imagined by new research. Yes, it looks like an ugly croissant. Image courtesy of Merav Opher, et. al

Every second of every day, our sun spits out a stream of tiny high-energy particles, known as the solar wind. This wind blows throughout the solar system, extending far beyond the orbits of the planets and out into interstellar space.

But the farther from the sun the wind gets, the more slowly it streams, changing from the raging torrent that the inner planets experience (strong enough to cause the aurora) into nothing more than an annoying drizzle. And far enough away – about twice the orbit of Neptune – it meets and mingles with all the random bits of energetic junk just floating around amongst the stars.