From Sun to Solar Wind: The Perplexing Solar Corona and the Space Environment It Creates

Nicholeen Viall discusses recent observations from STEREO and the Parker Solar Probe, which show the constantly roiling complex dynamic of the sun's atmosphere at work, even when the sun is relatively quiet. NASA Observatories examining the atmosphere of the sun are revealing extraordinary detail in the solar corona. Material from this mysteriously super-hot outer layer expands outward to become the solar wind, accelerating to beyond the speed of sound and bathing the planets in plasma and magnetic fields.

- Nicholeen Viall is a research astrophysicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.