LPL Colloquium: The Origin of the Solar Wind

Dr. Ben Chandran from the University of New Hampshire is the scheduled speaker.

The solar wind plays a central role in numerous space-physics phenomena, from space weather to the propagation of energetic particles. It also provides a laboratory for studying physical processes such as plasma turbulence and magnetic reconnection that are of broad importance throughout astrophysics. In the roughly five decades since the solar wind's discovery, spacecraft measurements and theoretical investigations have led to significant advances in our understanding of the solar wind. However, despite this progress, the solar wind's origin remains a mystery and one of the most compelling problems in space physics today. In this talk I will provide a brief overview of our current understanding of the solar wind's origin, the main areas of active research on this problem, and also the plans that are now underway for two major missions to the inner heliosphere later this decade: Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter. Finally, I will describe in some detail one of the more promising ideas for how the solar wind originates --- that it is heated and accelerated by waves and turbulence.