Friday, September 26th, 2008

Solar Winds

Polar plots of the solar wind speed over all three of Ulysses’ orbits. Data from the third orbit indicates that the solar wind is about 25 percent less powerful than it was in the previous solar minimum cycle. Southwest Research Institute; From McComas et al., 2008

In this segment, we'll hear about the solar wind, a gas plasma emanating from the sun at a million miles an hour. It forms a bubble around our solar system to protect against galactic cosmic rays. But new data suggest the solar wind is weaker than it's been since the beginning of the space age. We'll talk about what that might mean for our solar system, and life here on Earth.

Guests

David McComas
Principal Investigator, Ulysses Solar Wind Observations Over the Poles of the Sun (SWOOPS) Experiment
Senior Executive Director, Space Science and Engineering Division
Southwest Research Institute
San Antonio, Texas