The Solar Wind.pdf

• The Earth’s atmosphere is stationary. The Sun’satmosphere is not stable but is blown out into space asthe solar wind filling the solar system and then some.• The first direct measurements of the solar wind were inthe 1960’s but it had already been suggested in theearly 1900s.– To explain a correlation between auroras and sunspotsBirkeland [1908] suggested continuous particle emission fromthese spots.– Others suggested that particles were emitted from the Sun onlyduring flares and that otherwise space was empty [Chapmanand Ferraro, 1931].– Observations of comet tails lead to the suggestion of acontinuous solar wind.– The question of a continuous solar wind was resolved in 1962when the Mariner 2 spacecraft returned 3 months of continuoussolar wind data while traveling to Venus.