Physics Colloquia: Anna Tenerani: On the origin and evolution of the solar wind: insights from the Parker Solar Probe

The solar corona is a magnetized plasma at temperatures above a million degrees. It expands into interplanetary space through the solar wind, which fills our solar system by generating the heliosphere. Despite the significant progress made over decades of observations, the mechanisms underlying coronal heating and solar wind acceleration have remained a fundamental unanswered question in space plasmas. The NASA mission Parker Solar Probe was launched in August 2018 with the objective of finding answers to these questions by gathering fields and particle data at distances closer to the sun than ever before. Here I will discuss what we are learning from the Parker Solar Probe, focusing on emerging perspectives on the role of waves and turbulence in solar wind dynamics, as well as remaining open questions.

Host: Pablo Laguna