LMR-112 · Planets
Solar Wind
The Sun isn't just shining. It's continuously evaporating.
§ A first look
§ Depths
Six ways into the same idea — from bedtime story to chalkboard. No order required.
L1 · Crayon
Told like a bedtime story.
For a curious 10-year-old. No jargon. Just a picture in your head.
The Sun is so unbelievably hot that its outermost layers can't quite hold themselves together. They leak a steady spray of charged particles in every direction, all the time, with no breaks for weekends or holidays. The spray blows past Earth at a million miles an hour and keeps going for billions of miles past Pluto. We are, in a real sense, living inside the Sun's breath. The Sun is, essentially, a very large open window.
§ Strange but true
- 01The universe is stranger than your intuition. This is a rule, not an exception.
- 02Every fact in physics was once an outrageous guess. Most still feel like one.
- 03If it doesn't bend your brain a little, you haven't read it carefully enough.
§ From the field journal
Solar Wind
"The Sun isn't just shining. It's continuously evaporating."
— observed, sketched, not yet fully understood.
§ Nearby
Constellations near Solar Wind
→
Aurora
The sky is a battery indicator. Tonight, it's discharging.
→
Comets
Dirty snowballs from the edge of the solar system, on million-year orbits.
→
Star
The Sun is detonating 600 million tons of hydrogen every second.
→
Magnetosphere
Earth has an invisible shield. Without it, the atmosphere would slowly blow away.