SOLAR WIND Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

SOLAR WIND - Essay Example This would result in the gas from the corona, in its several million degrees, streaming away from the Sun at a speed much higher than the escape speed. The wind, being a plasma flow of high speed would carry along trapped magnetic fields. The solar wind would create the heliosphere described by Zeilik (265) as a massive bubble existing in the interstellar medium surrounding the Solar System. The heliosphere, at the solar minimum would be dominated by high latitude fast solar wind, but the slow variable wind emanating from all latitudes would dominate at and when approaching the solar. As the solar wind would be flowing away from the Sun to fill the heliosphere, it would interact with solar system bodies, including planets in various complex ways. The nature of interaction would be determined with whether the target has generated magnetic field internally such as the Earth, Mercury and other giant outer plants or not such as the comets, the Moon, Venus and Mars. According to Zeilik (265), the solar wind whips at typically 500 km/s at the orbit of the earth with the speed varying because the wind blows in gusts. The said particles, electrons and protons would take 5 days to travel from the Sun to the Earth. As the earth swims through the resultant solar spray, Matthaeus notes that it would catch some of the particles of the solar wind in its magnetic field leading to the creation of its magnetosphere. The solar wind’s plasma, travelling as far as 100 AU, much farther than the orbit of Pluto would carry along with it remnants of the magnetic field of the Sun. It is this transported field that Zeilik (265) attributes to the formation of the magnetic field that exists between planets. This field would interact with comets forming tails, and with planets forming magnetospheres. The comets’ plasma tails and the aurorae have been noted to point away from the sun. The interaction of the solar winds with the magnetosphere through the temporary