For the first time, a probe traces the origin of a solar wind to the surface of the star

Scientists hope to learn more about the Sun. But the star at the center of our planetary system is not easy to study. This is why a probe was placed in orbit around this gigantic star. After taking off in February 2020, Solar Orbiter was able to begin examining it last year.

Recently, solar activity has experienced great turmoil. The star enters a peak of activity, causing an increase in solar storms. If these phenomena are to be repeated throughout the year, the Solar Orbiter probe has already succeeded in gleaning valuable information.

For the first time, it has been possible to trace the movement of a solar wind back to its starting point on the surface of the Sun, says Space.com. “This was a key objective of the mission, allowing us to study the origin of the solar wind with unprecedented precision”explains Daniel Müller, the scientific manager of the Solar Orbiter project of the European Space Agency (ESA) in a press release.

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An observation instrument placed around thirty million kilometers from the Sun

This discovery represents a crucial issue for the study of solar winds and particle ejections from the upper atmosphere of the body. They can disrupt the Earth’s magnetic field, notably by causing power outages or disabling certain electronic objects, such as GPS systems.

With the Solar Orbiter project, ESA scientists want to better identify the elements that would make it possible to predict solar winds. According to their theories, the streams of particle emissions would have unique identifiers depending on the region of the Sun from which they come.

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To help them in their research, the Solar Orbiter is equipped with remote sensing instruments to observe the Sun in real time, but also with ten sensors placed around the probe. It is thus possible to see the start of solar activity and analyze the disturbances when the solar wind hits the probe, placed around thirty million kilometers from the star.

During its journey to the Sun, the Solar Orbiter probe passed through Mercury’s atmosphere in March 2022. The readings it carried out there made it possible to catalog different types of solar wind. The one whose Source the probe has traced is a slow solar wind, which moves at 500 meters per second.

Two types of magnetic lines that cause different solar storms

“We saw a lot of complexity that we were able to relate to the Source regions”details the main author of the study, Stephanie Yardley, assistant professor at the University of Northumbria, in the United Kingdom.

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Images of the Sun’s surface taken by the probe helped scientists pinpoint a region of the Sun from which slow-moving wind currents originate. Solar Orbiter distinguished two types of magnetic field lines: one open (a single attachment to the Sun), the other closed (two attachments to the Sun forming a sort of arc).

These observations are in line with the researchers’ theories. They believe that slow winds escape from the Sun when closed magnetic field lines untie and reattach to the star. In their reasoning, it is this change of status which would power the solar wind currents.

The study of the phenomena at the origin of these currents should make it possible to better detect solar storms. It would thus be possible to anticipate with greater precision the effects reflected on the Earth.