Solar Wind Energy Source to Help Fusion Research?

Solar Wind Energy Source Discovered

 

Solar wind flows away from the sun at speeds up to and exceeding 500 km/s (a million mph).

March 8, 2013: Using data from an aging NASA spacecraft, researchers have found signs of an energy source in the solar wind that has caught the attention of fusion researchers. NASA will be able to test the theory later this decade when it sends a new probe into the sun for a closer look.

The discovery was made by a group of astronomers trying to solve a decades-old mystery: What heats and accelerates the solar wind?

Solar wind flows away from the sun at speeds up to and exceeding 500 km/s (a million mph). More

The solar wind is a hot and fast flow of magnetized gas that streams away from the sun's upper atmosphere.  It is made of hydrogen and helium ions with a sprinkling of heavier elements.  Researchers liken it to the steam from a pot of water boiling on a stove; the sun is literally boiling itself away.

“But,” says Adam Szabo of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, “solar wind does something that steam in your kitchen never does.  As steam rises from a pot, it slows and cools.  As solar wind leaves the sun, it accelerates, tripling in speed as it passes through the corona. Furthermore, something inside the solar wind continues to add heat even as it blows into the cold of space."

More - Link >>> http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/08mar_solarwind/

Source: NASA Science News.

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