Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Solar Wind |
Solar WindNoun1. A stream of protons moving radially from the sun. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
| Domain | Definition |
Aerospace | Streams of plasma flowing approximately radially outward from the sun. (references) |
Astronomy | The wind from the Sun. More specifically, particles, usually electrons and protons, continually streaming away from the corona of the Sun. The solar wind is extremely sparse, containing only a few fast moving particles per cubic centimeter at the Earth. The exact geometry and extent of the solar wind is not well known. (references) |
Geography | The constant streams from the sun of ionised particles, primarily hydrogen, which move with velocities of 250-500 miles per second. Source: European Union. (references) |
Physics | A predominantly hydrogen plasma with embedded magnetic fields which blows out of the solar corona above escape velocity, and fills the heliosphere. The solar wind velocities are on the order of 100-1000 km/s. The solar wind's density is typically on the order of 10 particles per cubic centimeter, and its temperature is on the order of 100,000 K as it crosses earth's orbit. The solar wind causes comet tails to point mainly away from the sun. Storms in the solar wind are caused by solar flares. (references) |
Science | A continuous plasma stream expanding into interplanetary space from the sun's corona. The solar wind is present continuously in interplanetary space. After escaping from the gravitational field of the sun, this gas flows outward at a typical speed of 400 km per second to distances known to be beyond the orbit of Pluto. Besides affecting Earth's weather, solar activity gives rise to a dramatic visual phenomena in our atmosphere. The streams of charged particles from the Sun interact the Earth's magnetic field like a generator to create current systems with electric potentials of as much as 100,000 volts. Charged electrons are energized by this process, sent along the magnetic field lines towards Earth's upper atmosphere, excite the gases present in the upper atmosphere and cause them to emit light which we call the auroras. The auroras are the northern (aurora borealis) and southern (aurora Australis) lights. (references) |
Solar | The outward flux of solar particles and magnetic fields from the sun. Typically, solar wind velocities are near 350 km/s. (references) |
Space | A fast outflow of hot gas in all directions from the upper atmosphere of the Sun ("solar corona"), which is too hot to allow the Sun's gravity to hold on to its gas. Its composition matches that of the Sun's atmosphere (mostly hydrogen) and its typical velocity is 400 km/sec, covering the distance from Sun to Earth in 4-5 days. The solar wind confines the Earth's magnetic field inside a cavity known as the magnetosphere and supplies energy to phenomena in the magnetosphere such as polar aurora ("northern lights") and magnetic storms. (references) |
| The outflow of charged particles from the solar corona into space. Because of the high temperature of the particles of the corona (mostly protons and electrons), they are moving at speeds higher than the solar escape velocity. At the orbit of the Earth, these particles are moving at about 500 km/sec. Some of these particles are captured by the magnetic fields of the planets, forming their magnetospheres. (references) | |
| Hot solar plasma spreading from the solar corona in all directions, at a typical speed of 300-700 km/sec. It is caused by the great heat of the corona. (references) | |
| Flow of lightweight ions and electrons (which together comprise plasma) thrown from the sun. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
In the Sol system, the composition of this plasma is identical to Sol's corona, 73% hydrogen and 25% helium with the remainder as trace impurities, and is ionized. Near Earth, the velocity of the solar wind varies from 200km/s-889km/s. The average is 450 km/s. From Sol, approximately 800 kg/s of material is lost as ejected solar wind.
Since solar wind is a plasma, it carries with it the Sun's magnetic field. Out to a distance of approximately 160,000,000 km (100,000,000 miles), the sun's rotation sweeps the solar wind into a spiral pattern by dragging its magnetic field lines with it, but beyond that distance solar wind moves outwards without much additional influence directly from the sun. Unusually energetic outbursts of solar wind caused by solar flares and other such solar weather phenomena are known as "solar storms" and can subject space probes and satellites to strong doses of radiation. Solar wind particles trapped in Earth's magnetic field tend to collect within the Van Allen radiation belts and can cause the Aurora borealis and the Aurora australis ,when they impact with Earth's atmosphere near the poles. Other planets, with magnetic fields similar to Earth's, also have their own auroras.
The solar wind blows a "bubble" in the interstellar medium (the rarefied hydrogen and helium gas that permeates the galaxy). The point where the solar wind's strength is no longer great enough to push back the interstellar medium is known as the heliopause, and is often considered to be the outer "border" of the solar system. The distance to the heliopause is not precisely known, and probably varies widely depending on the current velocity of the solar wind and the local density of the interstellar medium, but it is known to lie far outside the orbit of Pluto.
See also: magnetopause, magnetosphere, ionosphere, shock wave
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Solar wind."
Crosswords: Solar Wind |
| English words defined with "solar wind": heliopause ♦ interplanetary gas ♦ James Alfred Van Allen ♦ sputter ♦ Van Allen. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "solar wind": Astrophysical plasmas ♦ Birkeland, Kristian Olaf, bow shock ♦ Coronal hole, Coronal Mass Ejection, Cusps ♦ HIGH-SPEED STREAM ♦ INTERPLANETARY MAGNETIC FIELD, Interplanetary shock ♦ Magnetic reconnection, Magnetic Storms and Substorms, MAGNETOPAUSE, Magnetosheath, magnetotail ♦ Planetary magnetospheres, Polar Cusps, Polar rain ♦ SECTOR BOUNDARY, Solar Corona, Space weather ♦ Termination shock ♦ Van Allen belts or Van Allen Radiation belts. (references) |
| Domain | Title |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | Aldrin Next to Solar Wind Experiment. Credit: NASA. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
Expression using "solar wind": solar wind spectrometer. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "solar wind"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | слънчева радиация. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Danish | solvind. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Dutch | zonnewind. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Finnish | aurinkotuuli. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
French | vent solaire. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Greek | ηλιακός άνεμος. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Italian | vento solare. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 太陽風 . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | たいようふう. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | olarsay indway vento solar. (various references) viento solar. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Misspellings | |
"Solar Wind" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: soler wind. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-d-i-l-n-o-r-s-w" | |
-1 letter: ordinals. | |
-2 letters: aldrins, inroads, inwards, ladinos, ladrons, lardons, onwards, ordains, ordinal, sadiron, warison. | |
-3 letters: adonis, adorns, aldrin, aloins, aroids, arsino, aswirl, danios, dinars, disown, diwans, dorsal, drails, drains, drawls, drowns, indols, indows, inroad, inward, island, ladino, ladron, lairds, lardon, liards, lidars, lorans, nadirs, norias, onward, ordain, radios, radons, ranids, rawins, rowans, sailor, soland. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-d-i-l-n-o-r-s-w" | |
+3 letters: cowardliness, towardliness. | |
+4 letters: landownership. | |
+5 letters: cowardlinesses, landownerships, towardlinesses. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)53 6F 6C 61 72 57 69 6E 64 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01010011 01101111 01101100 01100001 01110010 00100000 01010111 01101001 01101110 01100100 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)S o l a r   W i n d |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0053 006F 006C 0061 0072 0057 0069 006E 0064 |
Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)5381786784257758070 |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Commercial 4. Images: Photo Album | 5. Expressions 6. Expressions: Internet 7. Translations: Modern 8. Derivations | 9. Anagrams 10. Orthography 11. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
