What powers the Sun’s mysterious wind? A daring spacecraft has some answers

Analysis shows that mini jets of gas help to generate the solar wind, a discovery that also illuminates how our star's activity damages satellites.

The discovery reveals fresh details about where the wind begins and how it is created. This is important for understanding why the Sun occasionally belches out extremely large bursts of particles, which can wash over Earth and generate glowing auroras while also damaging satellites.

The researchers were able to spot the jets for the first time because Solar Orbiter was flying so close to the Sun — just 45 million kilometres away, closer than the orbit of Mercury. Since the spacecraft’s launch in 2020, it has been traveling in an elliptical orbit around the Sun that takes it on close passes twice a year. That ringside seat has allowed it to photograph never-before-seen structures, such as other kinds of small flares nicknamed ‘campfires’.

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