Solar wind as a research area focuses on the plasma outflow from the solar corona and its interaction with the heliosphere and planetary environments. It encompasses characterization of its composition, velocity distributions, turbulence, and magnetic structure, including fast and slow streams, coronal mass ejections, and associated shock waves. The field integrates in situ spacecraft measurements, remote sensing, and magnetohydrodynamic and kinetic modeling to study acceleration and heating mechanisms, magnetic reconnection, and wave–particle interactions. Solar wind research is central to understanding heliophysics, space weather forecasting, particle transport, and the coupling between solar activity and magnetospheres throughout the solar system.
The moon has been bathed in solar wind for billions of years, but the two hemispheres are struck by solar wind of different speeds and energies.
Planetary Sciences
Jul 19, 2026
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Where does the solar system end and interstellar space begin? That's a question scientists have been working to answer using spacecraft traveling beyond the sun's influence. A team of researchers from the Southwest Research ...
Astronomy
Jul 7, 2026
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A researcher at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama System, has published a new study in The Astrophysical Journal suggesting that tiny charged dust grains near the sun may significantly ...
Astronomy
Jul 1, 2026
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A new Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) study based on data from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has uncovered insights into why the solar wind gradually slows as it moves toward the edge of the solar system and the boundary ...
Astronomy
Jun 29, 2026
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A University of Iowa-led physics team has detailed the extreme expansion of a magnetic cloud that originated from a huge, gaseous explosion on the sun. In a new study, the researchers describe the inflated magnetic cloud ...
Astronomy
Jun 24, 2026
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Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists are using a solar wind forecasting method combined with analytic and numerical heliosphere models to find out where the first plasma boundary of the outer heliosphere lies as ...
Planetary Sciences
Jun 22, 2026
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The proton sharks showed up on a Friday. In a routine data calibration meeting for NASA's Parker Solar Probe in 2020, a small group of scientists were scrolling through visualizations of their data showing solar winds. Suddenly, ...
Astronomy
May 28, 2026
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Before Smile can begin studying how Earth responds to the streams of particles and bursts of radiation from the sun, the spacecraft had to complete an extraordinary journey here on Earth.
Space Exploration
May 18, 2026
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18
It has been a dream of astronomers and solar scientists for ages. A new mission gives solar researchers a powerful new tool in their arsenal: on-demand, total solar eclipses. Launched in 2024, The European Space Agency's ...
Space Exploration
Apr 30, 2026
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15
From birth to death, stars generally slow by 100 to 1,000 times their initial rotation rates; in other words, they "spin down." The sun's total angular momentum has declined as material is gradually blown off at the surface ...
Astronomy
Apr 27, 2026
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