sunny wind

Such recognition is worth a lot, because it revives the half-forgotten solar-plasmoid hypothesis of the origin and development of life on Earth, put forward by the Ulyanovsk scientist B. A. Solomin almost 30 years ago.

The solar-plasmoid hypothesis states that highly organized solar and terrestrial plasmoids have played and still play a key role in the origin and development of life and intelligence on Earth. This hypothesis is so interesting, especially in the light of the experimental data obtained by Novosibirsk scientists, that it is worth getting to know it in more detail.

First of all, what is a plasmoid? A plasmoid is a plasma system structured by its own magnetic field. Plasma, in turn, is a hot, ionized gas. The simplest example of plasma is fire. Plasma has the ability to dynamically interact with a magnetic field, to keep the field in itself. And the field, in turn, orders the chaotic movement of charged plasma particles. Under certain conditions, a stable but dynamic system is formed, consisting of a plasma and a magnetic field.

The Sun is the source of plasmoids in the solar system. Around the Sun, as well as around the Earth, there is an atmosphere. The outer part of the solar atmosphere, made up of hot, ionized hydrogen plasma, is called the solar corona. And if on the surface of the Sun the temperature is about 10,000 K, then due to the flow of energy coming from its interior, the temperature of the corona reaches 1.5-2 million K. Since the density of the corona is low, such heating is not balanced by the loss of energy due to radiation.

In 1957, Professor of the University of Chicago E. Parker published his hypothesis that the solar corona is not in hydrostatic equilibrium, but is continuously expanding. In this case, a significant part of the solar radiation is a more or less continuous outflow of plasma, the so-called sunny wind, which carries away excess energy. That is, the solar wind is an extension of the solar corona.

It took two years for this prediction to be confirmed experimentally using instruments installed on the Soviet spacecraft Luna-2 and Luna-3. Later it turned out that the solar wind carries away from the surface of our luminary, in addition to energy and information, about a million tons of matter per second. It contains mainly protons, electrons, a few helium nuclei, oxygen, silicon, sulfur, nickel, chromium and iron ions.

In 2001, the Americans launched the Genesis spacecraft, designed to study the solar wind, into orbit. Having flown more than one and a half million kilometers, the device approached the so-called Lagrange point, where the gravitational effect of the Earth is balanced by the gravitational forces of the Sun, and deployed its traps of solar wind particles there. In 2004, a capsule with collected particles crashed to the ground, contrary to a planned soft landing. The particles were “washed away” and photographed.

To date, observations made from Earth satellites and other spacecraft show that interplanetary space is filled with an active medium - the flow of the solar wind, which originates in the upper layers of the solar atmosphere.

When flares occur on the Sun, plasma flows and magnetic-plasma formations - plasmoids - scatter in all directions from it through sunspots (coronal holes) - regions in the Sun's atmosphere with a magnetic field open to interplanetary space. This stream moves from the Sun with significant acceleration, and if at the base of the corona the radial velocity of particles is several hundred m / s, then near the Earth it reaches 400–500 km / s.

Reaching the Earth, the solar wind causes changes in its ionosphere, magnetic storms, which significantly affects biological, geological, mental and even historical processes. The great Russian scientist A.L. Chizhevsky wrote about this at the beginning of the 20th century, who since 1918 in Kaluga for three years conducted experiments in the field of aeroionization and came to the conclusion: negatively charged plasma ions have a beneficial effect on living organisms, and positively charged act in the opposite way. In those distant times, 40 years remained before the discovery and study of the solar wind and the Earth's magnetosphere!

Plasmoids are present in the Earth's biosphere, including in the dense layers of the atmosphere and near its surface. In his book "Biosphere" V. I. Vernadsky was the first to describe the mechanism of the surface shell, finely coordinated in all its manifestations. Without the biosphere there would be no globe, for, according to Vernadsky, the Earth is "molded" by the Cosmos with the help of the biosphere. It "sculpts" thanks to the use of information, energy and substance. “In essence, the biosphere can be viewed as a region of the earth's crust, occupied by transformers(our italics .- Auth.), converting cosmic radiation into effective terrestrial energy - electrical, chemical, thermal, mechanical, etc. " (nine). It was the biosphere, or "the geological force of the planet," as Vernadsky called it, that began to change the structure of the cycle of matter in nature and "create new forms and organizations of inert and living matter." It is likely that when talking about transformers, Vernadsky was talking about plasmoids, about which at that time they did not know anything at all.

The solar-plasmoid hypothesis explains the role of plasmoids in the origin of life and intelligence on Earth. In the early stages of evolution, plasmoids could become a kind of active "crystallization centers" for the denser and colder molecular structures of the early Earth. “Dressing” in relatively cold and dense molecular clothes, becoming a kind of internal “energy cocoons” of emerging biochemical systems, they were simultaneously the control centers of a complex system, directing evolutionary processes towards the formation of living organisms (10). A similar conclusion was also reached by the scientists of MNIIKA, who managed to achieve the materialization of uneven aetheric streams under experimental conditions.

The aura, which sensitive physical devices fix around biological objects, is, apparently, the outer part of the plasmoid "energy cocoon" of a living being. It can be assumed that the energy channels and biologically active points of oriental medicine are the internal structures of the “energy cocoon”.

The Sun is the source of plasmoid life for the Earth, and the streams of the solar wind bring us this life principle.

And what is the source of plasmoid life for the Sun? To answer this question, it is necessary to assume that life at any level does not arise "by itself", but is brought in from a more global, highly organized, rarefied and energetic system. As for the Earth, the Sun is a "mother system", so for a luminary there must be a similar "mother system" (11).

According to the Ulyanovsk scientist BA Solomin, interstellar plasma, hot hydrogen clouds, nebulae containing magnetic fields, and also relativistic (that is, moving at a speed close to the speed of light) electrons could serve as the "mother system" for the Sun. A large amount of rarefied and very hot (millions of degrees) plasma and relativistic electrons, structured by magnetic fields, fill the galactic corona - a sphere that contains a flat stellar disk of our Galaxy. Global galactic plasmoid and relativistic-electron clouds, the level of organization of which is incommensurate with that of the sun, give rise to plasmoid life on the Sun and other stars. Thus, the galactic wind serves as the carrier of plasmoid life for the Sun.

And what is the "mother system" for galaxies? In the formation of the global structure of the Universe, scientists pay a large role to ultra-light elementary particles - neutrinos, literally penetrating space in all directions with speeds close to the speed of light. It is precisely neutrino inhomogeneities, clumps, clouds that could serve as those "frameworks" or "crystallization centers" around which galaxies and their clusters were formed in the early Universe. Neutrino clouds are even more subtle and energetic level of matter than the stellar and galactic "mother systems" of cosmic life described above. They could well have been evolution constructors for the latter.

Let's rise, finally, to the highest level of consideration - to the level of our Universe as a whole, which arose about 20 billion years ago. Studying its global structure, scientists have established that galaxies and their clusters are located in space not chaotically and not evenly, but in a quite definite way. They are concentrated along the walls of huge spatial "honeycombs", inside which, as it was believed until the recent past, giant "voids" - voids are contained. However, today it is already known that "voids" in the Universe do not exist. It can be assumed that everything is filled with a "special substance", the carrier of which is the primary torsion fields. This "special substance", which represents the basis of all vital functions, may well be for our Universe that World Architect, Cosmic Consciousness, the Highest Mind, which gives meaning to its existence and the direction of evolution.

If this is so, then already at the moment of its birth, our Universe was alive and intelligent. Life and mind do not arise independently in any cold molecular oceans on the planets, they are inherent in space. The cosmos is saturated with various forms of life, sometimes strikingly different from the usual protein-nucleic acid systems and incomparable with them in their complexity and degree of rationality, space-time scales, energy and mass.

It is the rarefied and hot matter that directs the evolution of the denser and colder matter. This seems to be a fundamental law of nature. Cosmic life hierarchically descends from the mysterious matter of voids to neutrino clouds, the intergalactic medium, and from them to the nuclei of galaxies and galactic corona in the form of relativistic-electronic and plasma-magnetic structures, then to interstellar space, to the stars and, finally, to the planets ... Cosmic intelligent life creates in its own image and likeness all local forms of life and controls their evolution (10).

Along with well-known conditions (temperature, pressure, chemical composition, etc.) for the emergence of life, the planet must have a pronounced magnetic field, not only protecting living molecules from lethal radiation, but also creating around it a concentration of solar-galactic plasmoid life in the form of radiation belts ... Of all the planets in the solar system (except for the Earth), only Jupiter has a strong magnetic field and large radiation belts. Therefore, there is some certainty about the presence of molecular intelligent life on Jupiter, although, possibly, of a non-protein nature.

With a high degree of probability, it can be assumed that all processes on the young Earth did not proceed chaotically or independently, but were directed by highly organized plasmoid evolutionary constructors. The hypothesis of the origin of life on Earth, which exists today, also recognizes the need for the presence of certain plasma factors, namely, powerful lightning discharges in the atmosphere of the early Earth.

Not only the birth, but also the further evolution of the protein-nucleic acid systems proceeded in close interaction with plasmoid life, with the latter playing a guiding role. Over time, this interaction became more and more subtle, rose to the level of the psyche, soul, and then the spirit of increasingly complex living organisms. The spirit and soul of living and intelligent beings is a very thin plasma matter of solar and terrestrial origin.

It has been established that plasmoids living in the radiation belts of the Earth (mainly of solar and galactic origin) can descend along the lines of the Earth's magnetic field into the lower layers of the atmosphere, especially at those points where these lines most intensively cross the Earth's surface, namely in the regions of the magnetic poles (north and south).

In general, plasmoids are extremely widespread on Earth. They can have a high degree of organization, show some signs of life and intelligence. Soviet and American expeditions to the region of the South Magnetic Pole in the middle of the 20th century encountered unusual luminous objects floating in the air and behaving very aggressively towards the members of the expedition. They were named the plasmosaurs of Antarctica.

Since the early 1990s, the registration of plasmoids not only on Earth, but also in nearby space has increased significantly. These are balls, stripes, circles, cylinders, little formed glowing spots, ball lightning, etc. Scientists have managed to divide all objects into two large groups. These are primarily objects that have distinct signs of known physical processes, but in them these signs are presented in a completely unusual combination. Another group of objects, on the contrary, has no analogies with known physical phenomena, and therefore their properties are generally inexplicable on the basis of existing physics.

It is worth noting the existence of terrestrial plasmoids, which are born in fault zones where active geological processes are taking place. Interesting in this respect is Novosibirsk, which stands on active faults and, in connection with this, has a special electromagnetic structure over the city. All the glow and flares registered over the city tend to these faults and are explained by the vertical energy imbalance and the activity of space.

The largest number of luminous objects is observed in the central area of ​​the city, located on the site where the thickening of technical energy sources and faults of the granite massif coincide.

For example, in March 1993, a disc-shaped object about 18 meters in diameter and 4.5 meters thick was observed near the hostel of the Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University. A crowd of schoolchildren chased this object, which slowly drifted over the ground for 2.5 kilometers. Schoolchildren tried to throw stones at him, but they deviated, not reaching the object. Then the children began to run up under the object and amuse themselves with the fact that their hats were thrown off them, as their hair stood on end from the electric voltage. Finally, this object flew out onto the high-voltage transmission line, without deviating anywhere, flew along it, gained speed, luminosity, turned into a bright ball and went up (12).

The appearance of luminous objects in the experiments carried out by Novosibirsk scientists in Kozyrev's mirrors should be especially noted. Thanks to the creation of left-right-rotating torsion flows due to rotating light currents in the windings of the laser thread and cones, scientists were able to simulate the information space of the planet in Kozyrev's mirror with the plasmoids that appeared in it. It was possible to study the influence of the emerging luminous objects on cells, and then on the person himself, as a result of which confidence in the correctness of the solar-plasmoid hypothesis was strengthened. The conviction appeared that not only the birth, but also the further evolution of protein-nucleic acid systems proceeded and proceeds in close interaction with plasmoid life with the guiding role of highly organized plasmoids.

There is a constant stream of particles ejected from the upper layers of the Sun's atmosphere. We see evidence of the solar wind around us. Powerful geomagnetic storms can damage satellites and electrical systems on Earth, and cause beautiful auroras. Perhaps the best evidence of this is the long tails of comets as they pass near the Sun.

The comet's dust particles are deflected by the wind and carried away from the Sun, which is why comet tails are always directed away from our star.

Solar wind: origin, characteristics

It comes from the upper atmosphere of the Sun, called the corona. This region has temperatures over 1 million Kelvin and particles have an energy charge of over 1 keV. There are actually two types of solar wind: slow and fast. This difference can be seen in comets. If you look closely at the comet's image, you will see that they often have two tails. One is straight and the other is more curved.

Fast solar wind

It travels at a speed of 750 km / s, and astronomers believe that it originates from coronal holes - regions where magnetic field lines make their way to the surface of the Sun.

Slow solar wind

It has a speed of about 400 km / s, and comes from the equatorial belt of our star. Radiation reaches the Earth, depending on the speed, from several hours to 2-3 days.

The slow solar wind is wider and denser than the fast wind that creates the comet's large, bright tail.

If it were not for the Earth's magnetic field, it would have destroyed life on our planet. However, the magnetic field around the planet protects us from radiation. The shape and size of the magnetic field is determined by the strength and speed of the wind.

Constant radial flow of solar plasma. corona in interplanetary production. The flow of energy coming from the interior of the Sun heats the corona plasma to 1.5-2 million K. Constant. heating is not balanced by the loss of energy due to radiation, since the corona is small. Excess energy means. degrees are carried away by S.'s ch-ts of century. (= 1027-1029 erg / s). The crown, therefore, is not hydrostatic. equilibrium, it is continuously expanding. According to the composition of S. century. does not differ from the plasma of the corona (S. century contains hl. arr. protons, el-ny, some helium nuclei, oxygen ions, silicon, sulfur, iron). At the base of the corona (10 thousand km from the photosphere of the Sun) ch-ts have a radial of the order of hundreds of m / s, at a distance of several. sun radii it reaches the speed of sound in plasma (100 -150 km / s), near the Earth's orbit the speed of protons is 300-750 km / s, and their spaces. - from several. ch-c to several. tens of ch-c in 1 cm3. With the help of interplanetary space. stations found that up to the orbit of Saturn, the flux density ch-c S. in. decreases according to the law (r0 / r) 2, where r is the distance from the Sun, r0 is the initial level. C. in. carries with it the loops of the lines of force of the sun. magn. fields, to-rye form the interplanetary magn. ... Combination of radial movement h-c S. of century. with the rotation of the Sun it gives these lines the shape of spirals. Large-scale structure of magn. the field in the vicinity of the Sun has the form of sectors, in which the field is directed from the Sun or towards it. The size of the cavity occupied by the semiconductor is not known exactly (its radius, apparently, is not less than 100 AU). At the boundaries of this cavity, dynamic. C. in. must be balanced by the pressure of interstellar gas, galactic. magn. fields and galactic. cosm. rays. In the vicinity of the Earth, the collision of a stream of ch-c S. century. with a geomagn. field generates a stationary shock wave in front of the Earth's magnetosphere (from the side of the Sun, Fig.).

C. in. as it flows around the magnetosphere, limiting its length in the avenue. Changes in the intensity of solar energy associated with solar flares, yavl. main cause of indignation geomagn. fields and magnetospheres (magnetic storms).

For the Sun, it loses from the north. = 2X10-14 part of its mass Msol. It is natural to assume that the outflow of the is-va, similar to the S. century, also exists for other stars (""). It should be especially intense in massive stars (with a mass = several decimal places of Msuns) and with a high surface temperature (= 30-50 thousand K) and in stars with an extended atmosphere (red giants), since in In the first case, the particles of a strongly developed stellar corona have a sufficiently high energy to overcome the attraction of the star, and in the second, the parabolic is low. speed (speed of escape; (see SPACE VELOCITY)). Means. mass loss with stellar wind (= 10-6 Msoln / year and more) can significantly affect the evolution of stars. In turn, the stellar wind creates "bubbles" of hot gas in the interstellar medium - sources of X-rays. radiation.

Physical encyclopedic dictionary. - M .: Soviet encyclopedia. . 1983 .

SOLAR WIND - continuous flow of plasma of solar origin, the Sun) into interplanetary space. At high temperatures pax, which exist in the solar corona (1.5 * 10 9 K), the pressure of the overlying layers cannot balance the gas pressure of the corona matter, and the corona expands.

The first evidence of the existence of post. plasma fluxes from the Sun were obtained by L. Birman (L. Biermann) in the 1950s. on the analysis of forces acting on plasma tails of comets. In 1957, Y. Parker (E. Parker), analyzing the conditions of equilibrium of the substance of the corona, showed that the corona cannot be under hydrostatic conditions. Wed S.'s characteristics. are given in table. 1. Streams S. in. can be divided into two classes: slow - with a speed of 300 km / s and fast - with a speed of 600-700 km / s. Fast streams emanating from areas of the solar corona, where the structure of magn. the field is close to radial. coronal holes. Slow streamspp. v. connected, apparently, with areas of the crown, in which there is a means, Tab. 1. - Average characteristics of the solar wind in Earth's orbit

Tab. 2.- The relative chemical composition of the solar wind

In addition to the main. components of S. v. - protons and electrons, in its composition are also found -particles, temperature of S.'s ions of century. allow you to determine the electronic temperature of the solar corona.

In S. in. there are decomp. types of waves: Langmuir, whistlers, ion-sound, Plasma waves). Some of the Alfvén-type waves are generated on the Sun, some are excited in the interplanetary medium. The generation of waves smoothes out the deviations of the f-tions of the distribution of particles from Maxwellian and in conjunction with the effect of magn. fields naplasma leads to the fact that S. century. behaves like a continuous medium. Waves of the Alfven type play an important role in the acceleration of small C components.

Rice. 1. Massive solar wind. The horizontal axis is the ratio of the particle mass to its charge, the vertical axis is the number of particles registered in the energy window of the device for 10 s. Numbers with a "+" sign indicate the charge of the ion.

C. stream. is supersonic in relation to the speeds of those types of waves, to-rye provide eff. transmission of energy to S. century. (Alfvén, sound and). Alfven and sound Mach number C. v. 7. When flowing around the S. obstacles capable of effectively deflecting it (the magnetic fields of Mercury, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn or the conducting ionospheres of Venus and, apparently, Mars), a detached bow shock wave is formed. waves that allow it to flow around the obstacle. Moreover, in S. century. a cavity is formed - a magnetosphere (intrinsic or induced), the shape and size of the cut are determined by the pressure balance of the magnet. fields of the planet and the pressure of the flowing plasma flow (see. Magnetosphere of the Earth, Magnetospheres of planets). In the case of S.'s interaction of century. with a non-conducting body (eg, the Moon), a shock wave does not arise. The plasma flow is absorbed by the surface, and a cavity is formed behind the body, which is gradually filled with plasma. v.

The stationary process of corona plasma outflow is superimposed by non-stationary processes associated with flares on the sun. With strong flares, matter is ejected from the bottom. regions of the corona into the interplanetary medium. Magnetic variations).

Rice. 2. Propagation of interplanetary shock waves and ejection from a solar flare. The arrows show the direction of motion of the solar wind plasma,

Rice. 3. Types of solutions of the corona expansion equation. The speed and distance are normalized to the critical speed v k and the critical distance R k. Solution 2 corresponds to the solar wind.

The expansion of the solar corona is described by the system of equations for the conservation of mass, v k) at a certain critical. distance R to and subsequent expansion at supersonic speed. This solution gives a vanishingly small value of the pressure at infinity, which makes it possible to match it with the low pressure of the interstellar medium. The course of this type was named by J. Parker by S. in. , where m is the proton mass, is the adiabatic exponent, and is the mass of the Sun. In fig. 4 shows the change in the expansion rate from heliocentric. thermal conductivity, viscosity,

Rice. 4. Profiles of the solar wind velocity for the isothermic corona model at various values ​​of the coronal temperature.

C. in. provides basic outflow of thermal energy of the corona, since heat transfer to the chromosphere, el.-magn. corona and electronic thermal conductivitypp. v. insufficient to establish the thermal balance of the crown. Electronic thermal conductivity provides a slow decrease in the temperature of S. in. with distance. the luminosity of the sun.

C. in. carries with it to the interplanetary medium the coronal magn. field. The lines of force of this field frozen into the plasma form an interplanetary magn. field (IMF). Although the intensity of the IMF is low and its energy density is about 1% of the kinetic density. energy of S. in., it plays an important role in thermodynamicspp. v. and in the dynamics of S.'s interactions. with bodies of the solar system, as well as streams of S. in. between themselves. Combination of S.'s expansion. with the rotation of the sun leads to the fact that the magn. the lines of force frozen in in S. century have the form, B R and azimuthal components of the magn. fields change differently with distance near the plane of the ecliptic:

where is ang. the speed of rotation of the sun, and - radial velocity component century, index 0 corresponds to the initial level. At the distance of the Earth's orbit, the angle between the direction of magn. fields and R about 45 °. At large A magn.

Rice. 5. The shape of the line of force of the interplanetary magnetic field. Is the angular velocity of rotation of the Sun, and is the radial component of the plasma velocity, R is the heliocentric distance.

S. century, arising over the regions of the Sun with decomp. orientation magn. fields, speed, temp-pa, particle concentration, etc.) also in cf. naturally change in the cross section of each sector, which is associated with the existence of a fast flow of S. in. within the sector. The boundaries of the sectors are usually located within the slow flow of S. to. Most often, there are 2 or 4 sectors rotating with the Sun. This structure, which is formed during S.'s pulling of century. large-scale magn. fields of the corona, can be observed for several. revolutions of the sun. The IMF sector structure is a consequence of the existence of a current sheet (TC) in the interplanetary medium, which rotates with the Sun. TC creates a jump in magn. fields -radial IMF have different signs on different sides of the vehicle. This TS, predicted by H. Alfven (N. Alfven), passes through those parts of the solar corona, which are associated with active regions on the Sun, and separates the indicated regions with decomp. signs of the radial component of the solar magn. fields. TS is located approximately in the plane of the solar equator and has a folded structure. The rotation of the Sun leads to the twisting of the TS folds in a spiral (Fig. 6). Being near the plane of the ecliptic, the observer turns out to be either higher or lower than the TS, due to which he finds himself in sectors with different signs of the radial component of the IMF.

Near the Sun in the northern century. there are longitudinal and latitudinal velocity gradients of collisionless shock waves (Fig. 7). First, a shock wave is formed, propagating forward from the boundary of the sectors (direct shock wave), and then a backward shock wave propagating to the Sun is formed.

Rice. 6. The shape of the heliospheric current sheet. Its intersection with the ecliptic plane (inclined to the equator of the Sun at an angle of ~ 7 °) gives the observed sectorial structure of the interplanetary magnetic field.

Rice. 7. The structure of the interplanetary magnetic field sector. Short arrows show the direction of the solar wind, lines with arrows - magnetic field lines, dash-dot line - sector boundaries (intersection of the plane of the figure with the current sheet).

Since the velocity of the shock wave is less than the velocity of the solar wind, the backward shock wave is carried away in the direction away from the Sun. Shock waves near the boundaries of sectors are formed at distances of ~ 1 AU. e. and can be traced to distances of several. a. e. These shock waves, as well as interplanetary shock waves from solar flares and near-planetary shock waves, accelerate particles and are, thus, a source of energetic particles.

C. in. extends to distances of ~ 100 AU. e., where the pressure of the interstellar medium balances the dynamic. S.'s pressure in. The cavity swept out by S. century. Interplanetary environment). Expanding S. v. together with the magnesium frozen into it. field prevents galactic penetration into the solar system. cosm. rays of low energies and leads to variations in cosmic. rays of high energies. A phenomenon analogous to S. of century has also been found in some other stars (see. Stellar wind).

Lit .: Parker E. N., Dynamic in the interplanetary medium, O. L. Vaisberg.

Physical encyclopedia. In 5 volumes. - M .: Soviet encyclopedia. Chief Editor A.M. Prokhorov. 1988 .

See what "SUNNY WIND" is in other dictionaries:

SOLAR WIND, the plasma flow of the solar corona that fills the Solar System up to a distance of 100 astronomical units from the Sun, where the pressure of the interstellar medium balances the dynamic pressure of the flow. The main composition is protons, electrons, nuclei ... Modern encyclopedia

SOLAR WIND, a steady stream of charged particles (mainly protons and electrons), accelerated by the high temperature of the solar CROWN to speeds high enough for the particles to overcome the gravity of the Sun. The solar wind deflects ... Scientific and technical encyclopedic dictionary

In 1957, Professor of the University of Chicago E. Parker theoretically predicted the phenomenon, which was named "solar wind". It took two years for this prediction to be confirmed experimentally with the help of instruments installed on the Soviet spacecraft "Luna-2" and "Luna-3" by KI Gringauz's group. What is this phenomenon?

The solar wind is a stream of fully ionized hydrogen gas, usually called fully ionized hydrogen plasma due to the approximately equal density of electrons and protons (quasi-neutrality condition), which accelerates away from the Sun. In the area of ​​the Earth's orbit (at one astronomical unit or, at 1 AU from the Sun), its velocity reaches an average value VE "400-500 km / s at a proton temperature TE" 100,000K and a slightly higher electron temperature (the "E" index here and in further refers to the Earth's orbit). At such temperatures, the speed is significantly higher than the speed of sound by 1 AU, i.e. the solar wind flux in the region of the Earth's orbit is supersonic (or hypersonic). The measured concentration of protons (or electrons) is rather small and amounts to n E »10–20 particles per cubic centimeter. In addition to protons and electrons, alpha particles (of the order of several percent of the concentration of protons), a small number of heavier particles, as well as an interplanetary magnetic field, the average induction of which turned out to be in the Earth's orbit of the order of several gammas (1g = 10 –5 gauss).

The collapse of the concept of a static solar corona.

For quite a long time, it was believed that all stellar atmospheres are in a state of hydrostatic equilibrium, i.e. in a state where the force of gravitational attraction of a given star is balanced by the force associated with a pressure gradient (a change in pressure in the star's atmosphere at a distance r from the center of the star. Mathematically, this equilibrium is expressed in the form of an ordinary differential equation,

where G- gravitational constant, M* - the mass of the star, p and r - pressure and mass density at some distance r from the star. Expressing the mass density from the equation of state for an ideal gas

R= r RT

through pressure and temperature and integrating the resulting equation, we obtain the so-called barometric formula ( R- gas constant), which in the particular case of constant temperature T has the form

where p 0 - represents the pressure at the base of the star's atmosphere (at r = r 0). Since before Parker's work it was believed that the solar atmosphere, like the atmospheres of other stars, is in a state of hydrostatic equilibrium, its state was determined by similar formulas. Taking into account the unusual and not yet fully understood phenomenon of a sharp increase in temperature from about 10,000 K on the surface of the Sun to 1,000,000 K in the solar corona, S. Chapman developed the theory of a static solar corona, which was supposed to smoothly transition into the local interstellar medium surrounding the solar system. From this it followed that, according to S. Chapman's ideas, the Earth, which revolves around the Sun, is immersed in a static solar corona. This point of view has long been shared by astrophysicists.

These established notions were hit by Parker. He drew attention to the fact that the pressure at infinity (at r® Ґ), which is obtained from the barometric formula, is almost 10 times higher than the pressure that was accepted at that time for the local interstellar medium. To eliminate this discrepancy, E. Parker suggested that the solar corona cannot be in hydrostatic equilibrium, but must continuously expand into the interplanetary medium surrounding the Sun, i.e. radial velocity V the solar corona is not zero. At the same time, instead of the equation of hydrostatic equilibrium, he proposed to use the hydrodynamic equation of motion of the form, where M E is the mass of the Sun.

At a given temperature distribution T, as a function of the distance from the Sun, the solution of this equation using the barometric formula for pressure and the equation of conservation of mass in the form

can be interpreted as a solar wind and it is with the help of this solution with the transition from a subsonic flow (at r r *) to supersonic (at r > r*) pressure can be matched R with pressure in the local interstellar medium, and, therefore, it is this decision, called the solar wind, that is carried out in nature.

The first direct measurements of the parameters of interplanetary plasma, which were carried out on the first spacecraft that entered interplanetary space, confirmed the correctness of Parker's idea of ​​the presence of a supersonic solar wind, and it turned out that already in the region of the Earth's orbit, the speed of the solar wind is much higher than the speed of sound. Since then, there is no doubt that Chapman's idea of ​​the hydrostatic equilibrium of the solar atmosphere is erroneous, and the solar corona is continuously expanding at supersonic speed into interplanetary space. Somewhat later, astronomical observations showed that many other stars also have "stellar winds" similar to the solar wind.

Despite the fact that the solar wind was predicted theoretically on the basis of a spherically symmetric hydrodynamic model, the phenomenon itself turned out to be much more complicated.

What is the real picture of the movement of the solar wind? For a long time, the solar wind was considered spherically symmetric, i.e. independent of solar latitude and longitude. Since the spacecraft until 1990, when the Ulysses spacecraft was launched, mainly flew in the plane of the ecliptic, measurements on such spacecraft gave the distribution of solar wind parameters only in this plane. Calculations based on observations of the deviation of comet tails indicated an approximate independence of the solar wind parameters from solar latitude; however, this conclusion based on cometary observations was not sufficiently reliable due to the difficulties in interpreting these observations. Although the longitudinal dependence of the solar wind parameters was measured by instruments installed on spacecraft, nevertheless, it was either insignificant and was associated with an interplanetary magnetic field of solar origin, or with short-term nonstationary processes on the Sun (mainly with solar flares).

Measurements of the parameters of plasma and magnetic field in the plane of the ecliptic showed that so-called sector structures with different parameters of the solar wind and different directions of the magnetic field can exist in interplanetary space. Such structures rotate with the Sun and clearly indicate that they are a consequence of a similar structure in the solar atmosphere, the parameters of which depend, therefore, on solar longitude. The four-sector structure is qualitatively shown in Fig. 1.

In this case, ground-based telescopes detect the general magnetic field on the surface of the Sun. Its average value is estimated at 1 G, although in some photospheric formations, for example, in sunspots, the magnetic field can be orders of magnitude greater. Since plasma is a good conductor of electricity, the solar magnetic fields in one way or another interact with the solar wind due to the appearance of the ponderomotive force j ґ B... This force is small in the radial direction, i.e. it practically does not affect the distribution of the radial component of the solar wind; however, its projection onto the direction perpendicular to the radial direction leads to the appearance of a tangential component of velocity in the solar wind. Although this component is almost two orders of magnitude smaller than the radial, it plays an essential role in the removal of the angular momentum from the Sun. Astrophysicists suggest that the latter circumstance may play a significant role in the evolution of not only the Sun, but also other stars in which stellar wind has been detected. In particular, in order to explain the sharp decrease in the angular velocity of stars of the late spectral type, the hypothesis of the transfer of rotational moment by them to the planets forming around them is often used. The considered mechanism of the loss of the angular momentum of the Sun through the outflow of plasma from it in the presence of a magnetic field opens up the possibility of revising this hypothesis.

Measurements of the average magnetic field not only in the region of the Earth's orbit, but also at large heliocentric distances (for example, on the Voyager 1 and 2 and Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft) have shown that in the ecliptic plane, which almost coincides with the plane of the solar equator , its magnitude and direction are well described by the formulas

obtained by Parker. In these formulas describing the so-called Parker Archimedes spiral, the quantities B r, B j are the radial and azimuthal components of the magnetic induction vector, respectively, W is the angular velocity of the Sun's rotation, V- the radial component of the solar wind, the index "0" refers to the point of the solar corona at which the magnitude of the magnetic field is known.

The launch by the European Space Agency in October 1990 of the Ulysses spacecraft, whose trajectory was calculated in such a way that it is currently orbiting the Sun in a plane perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic, completely changed the idea that the solar wind is spherically symmetric. In fig. Figure 2 shows the distributions of the radial velocity and density of the solar wind protons as a function of solar latitude, measured on the Ulysses spacecraft.

This figure shows a strong latitudinal dependence of the solar wind parameters. It turned out that the solar wind speed increases, and the proton density decreases with heliographic latitude. And if in the plane of the ecliptic the radial velocity is on average ~ 450 km / sec, and the proton density is ~ 15 cm –3, then, for example, at 75 ° solar latitude these values ​​are ~ 700 km / sec and ~ 5 cm –3, respectively. The dependence of solar wind parameters on latitude is less pronounced during periods of minimum solar activity.

Non-stationary processes in the solar wind.

The model proposed by Parker assumes the spherical symmetry of the solar wind and the independence of its parameters from time (stationarity of the phenomenon under consideration). However, the processes occurring on the Sun, generally speaking, are not stationary, and therefore, the solar wind is not stationary either. The characteristic times of variation of the parameters have very different scales. In particular, there are changes in the parameters of the solar wind associated with the 11-year cycle of solar activity. In fig. 3 shows the average (over 300 days) dynamic solar wind pressure (r V 2) in the region of the Earth's orbit (by 1 AU) during one 11-year solar cycle of solar activity (upper part of the figure). At the bottom of Fig. 3 shows the change in the number of sunspots from 1978 to 1991 (the maximum number corresponds to the maximum solar activity). It can be seen that the solar wind parameters change significantly over a characteristic time of about 11 years. At the same time, measurements on the Ulysses spacecraft showed that such changes occur not only in the ecliptic plane, but also at other heliographic latitudes (at the poles, the dynamic pressure of the solar wind is slightly higher than at the equator).

Changes in the parameters of the solar wind can occur on much smaller time scales. For example, solar flares and different velocities of plasma outflow from different regions of the solar corona lead to the formation of interplanetary shock waves in interplanetary space, which are characterized by a sharp jump in velocity, density, pressure, and temperature. The mechanism of their formation is qualitatively shown in Fig. 4. When a fast flow of any gas (for example, solar plasma) catches up with a slower one, then at the point of their contact an arbitrary discontinuity of gas parameters arises, on which the laws of conservation of mass, momentum and energy are not satisfied. Such a discontinuity cannot exist in nature and breaks up, in particular, into two shock waves (on which the laws of conservation of mass, momentum and energy lead to the so-called Hugoniot relations) and a tangential discontinuity (the same conservation laws lead to the fact that the pressure and the normal component of the velocity must be continuous). In fig. 4 this process is shown in a simplified form of a spherically symmetric flare. It should be noted here that such structures, consisting of a forward shock, a tangential discontinuity, and a second shock wave (reverse shock) move from the Sun in such a way that the shock forward moves at a speed greater than the speed of the solar wind, the reverse shock moves from the Sun with a speed slightly less than the speed of the solar wind, and the speed of the tangential discontinuity is equal to the speed of the solar wind. Such structures are regularly recorded by instruments installed on spacecraft.

Changes in solar wind parameters with distance from the sun.

The change in the speed of the solar wind with distance from the Sun is determined by two forces: the force of solar gravity and the force associated with the change in pressure (pressure gradient). Since the force of gravity decreases as the square of the distance from the Sun, its influence is insignificant at large heliocentric distances. Calculations show that already in the Earth's orbit, its influence, as well as the influence of the pressure gradient, can be neglected. Consequently, the speed of the solar wind can be considered almost constant. Moreover, it significantly exceeds the speed of sound (hypersonic flow). Then it follows from the above hydrodynamic equation for the solar corona that the density r decreases as 1 / r 2. The American spacecraft Voyager 1 and 2, Pioneer 10 and 11, launched in the mid-1970s and now located at a distance of several tens of astronomical units from the Sun, confirmed these ideas about the parameters of the solar wind. They also confirmed the theoretically predicted Parker Archimedes spiral for the interplanetary magnetic field. However, the temperature does not follow the adiabatic cooling law as the solar corona expands. At very large distances from the Sun, the solar wind even tends to warm up. This heating can be due to two reasons: the dissipation of energy associated with plasma turbulence and the influence of neutral hydrogen atoms penetrating into the solar wind from the interstellar medium surrounding the solar system. The second reason also leads to some deceleration of the solar wind at large heliocentric distances, found on the aforementioned spacecraft.

Conclusion.

Thus, the solar wind is a physical phenomenon that is not only of purely academic interest associated with the study of processes in plasma in the natural conditions of outer space, but also a factor that must be taken into account when studying the processes occurring in the vicinity of the Earth, since these processes to one degree or another have an impact on our lives. In particular, high-speed streams of the solar wind, flowing around the Earth's magnetosphere, affect its structure, and non-stationary processes on the Sun (for example, flares) can lead to magnetic storms that disrupt radio communications and affect the well-being of meteosensitive people. Since the solar wind originates in the solar corona, its properties in the region of the Earth's orbit are a good indicator for studying solar-terrestrial relations that are important for human practical activity. However, this is already another area of ​​scientific research, which we will not touch upon in this article.

Vladimir Baranov

SUNNY WIND- a continuous flow of plasma of solar origin, spreading approximately radially from the Sun and filling the solar system to heliocentric. distances R ~ 100 AU. e. C. in. formed when gasdynamic. expansion of the solar corona (see. The sun) into interplanetary space. At high temperatures pax, which exist in the solar corona (1.5 * 10 9 K), the pressure of the overlying layers cannot balance the gas pressure of the corona matter, and the corona expands.

The first evidence of the existence of post. plasma flux from the Sun were obtained by L. Biermann in the 1950s. on the analysis of forces acting on plasma tails of comets. In 1957, Y. Parker (E. Parker), analyzing the conditions of equilibrium of the corona substance, showed that the corona cannot be under hydrostatic conditions. equilibrium, as previously assumed, but should expand, and this expansion under the existing boundary conditions should lead to the acceleration of coronal matter to supersonic speeds (see below). For the first time, a plasma flow of solar origin was recorded on the Soviet space mission. apparatus "Luna-2" in 1959. The existence of post. the outflow of plasma from the Sun was proved as a result of many months of measurements on Amer. cosm. apparatus "Mariner-2" in 1962.

Wed S.'s characteristics. are given in table. 1. Streams S. in. can be divided into two classes: slow - with a speed of 300 km / s and fast - with a speed of 600-700 km / s. Fast currents emanate from areas of the solar corona, where the structure of the magn. the field is close to radial. Some of these areas are coronal holes... Slow streams of S. to. connected, apparently, with areas of the crown, in which there is, therefore, a tangential component of magn. fields.

Tab. 1.- Average characteristics of the solar wind in the Earth's orbit

Tab. 2.- The relative chemical composition of the solar wind

In addition to the main. of the components of S. v. - protons and electrons; ions of oxygen, silicon, sulfur, iron (Fig. 1). When analyzing gases trapped in foils exposed on the Moon, atoms of Ne and Ar were found. Wed relative chem. S.'s composition of century is given in table. 2. Ionization. state of matter C. corresponds to the level in the corona where the recombination time is short compared to the expansion time Measurements of ionization temperature of S.'s ions of century. allow you to determine the electronic temperature of the solar corona.

In S. in. there are decomp. types of waves: Langmuir, whistlers, ion-sound, magnetosonic, Alfvén, etc. (see. Plasma waves Some of the waves of the Alfvén type are generated on the Sun, and some are excited in the interplanetary medium. The generation of waves smooths out the deviations of the f-tions of the distribution of particles from Maxwellian and, in conjunction with the effect of magn. field on the plasma leads to the fact that S. century. behaves like a continuous medium. Waves of the Alfvén type play an important role in the acceleration of small components of the shock wave. and in the formation of the f-tion of the distribution of protons. In S. in. contact and rotational discontinuities are also observed, which are characteristic of magnetized plasma.

Rice. 1. Mass spectrum of the solar wind. The horizontal axis is the ratio of the particle mass to its charge, the vertical axis is the number of particles registered in the energy window of the device for 10 s. Numbers with a "+" sign indicate the charge of the ion.

C. stream. is supersonic in relation to the speeds of those types of waves, to-rye provide eff. transmission of energy to S. century. (Alfvén, sound and magnetosonic waves). Alfven and sound Mach number C.v. in the orbit of the Earth 7. When flowing around the S. v. obstacles capable of effectively deflecting it (the magnetic fields of Mercury, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn or the conducting ionospheres of Venus and, apparently, Mars), a detached bow shock wave is formed. C. in. decelerates and heats up at the front of the shock wave, which allows it to flow around the obstacle. Moreover, in S. century. a cavity is formed - a magnetosphere (intrinsic or induced), the shape and size of the cut are determined by the pressure balance of the magnets. fields of the planet and the pressure of the flowing plasma flow (see. Magnetosphere of the Earth, Magnetospheres of planets)... In the case of S.'s interaction of century. with a non-conducting body (for example, the Moon), the shock wave does not arise. The plasma flow is absorbed by the surface, and a cavity is formed behind the body, which is gradually filled with sulfuric plasma.

The stationary process of corona plasma outflow is superimposed by non-stationary processes associated with flares on the sun... With strong flares, matter is ejected from the bottom. regions of the corona into the interplanetary medium. In this case, a shock wave is also formed (Fig. 2), edges gradually slows down, spreading in S.'s plasma of century. The arrival of a shock wave to the Earth causes compression of the magnetosphere, after which the development of magnes usually begins. storms (see. Magnetic variations).

Rice. 2. Propagation of interplanetary shock waves and ejection from a solar flare. Arrows show the direction of motion of the solar wind plasma, lines without signature - lines of force of the magnetic field.

Rice. 3. Types of solutions of the corona expansion equation. The speed and distance are normalized to the critical speed v k and the critical distance R k. Solution 2 corresponds to the solar wind.

The expansion of the solar corona is described by the system of equations for the conservation of mass, the moment of the number of motion and the energy equation. Solutions for dec. the nature of the change in speed with distance are shown in Fig. 3. Solutions 1 and 2 correspond to low velocities at the base of the crown. The choice between these two solutions is determined by the conditions at infinity. Solution 1 corresponds to low rates of expansion of the corona and gives large values ​​of pressure at infinity, i.e., it meets the same difficulties as the static model. crowns. Solution 2 corresponds to the transition of the expansion rate through the values ​​of the speed of sound ( v to) on a certain critical. distance R to and subsequent expansion at supersonic speed. This solution gives a vanishingly small value of pressure at infinity, which makes it possible to match it with the low pressure of the interstellar medium. The course of this type was named by J. Parker by S. in. Critical the point is above the surface of the Sun if the temperature of the corona is less than a certain critical value. meaning , where m is the proton mass, is the adiabatic exponent, and is the mass of the Sun. In fig. 4 shows the change in the expansion rate from heliocentric. distance depending on temperature isothermal isotropic corona. Subsequent models of S. in. take into account variations in the coronal temperature with distance, the two-fluid nature of the medium (electron and proton gases), thermal conductivity, viscosity, nonspherical. the nature of the expansion.

Rice. 4. Profiles of the solar wind velocity for the isothermal corona model at different values ​​of the coronal temperature.

C. in. provides basic outflow of thermal energy of the corona, since heat transfer to the chromosphere, electromagnet. corona radiation and electronic thermal conductivity of S. century. insufficient to establish the thermal balance of the crown. Electronic thermal conductivity provides a slow decrease in the temperature of S. in. with distance. C. in. does not play any significant role in the energy of the Sun as a whole, since the energy flow carried away by it is ~ 10 -7 luminosity The sun.

C. in. carries with it to the interplanetary medium the coronal magn. field. The lines of force of this field frozen into the plasma form an interplanetary magn. field (MMP). Although the intensity of the IMF is low and its energy density is approx. 1% of the density kinetic. energy of a semiconductor, it plays an important role in thermodynamics of semiconductor voltages. and in the dynamics of S.'s interactions. with the bodies of the solar system, as well as the streams of the S. century. between themselves. Combination of S.'s expansion. with the rotation of the sun leads to the fact that magn. the lines of force frozen in in S. century have a shape close to the spiral of Archimedes (Fig. 5). Radial B R and azimuthal components of magn. fields change differently with distance near the plane of the ecliptic:

where is ang. the speed of rotation of the sun, and is the radial component of the velocity of the S. of speed, index 0 corresponds to the initial level. At the distance of the Earth's orbit, the angle between the direction of magn. fields and R about 45 °. At large A magn. the field is almost perpendicular to R.

Rice. 5. The shape of the line of force of the interplanetary magnetic field. is the angular velocity of rotation of the Sun, and is the radial component of the plasma velocity, R is the heliocentric distance.

S. century, arising over the regions of the Sun with decomp. orientation magn. fields, forms flows with differently oriented IMF. Separation of the observed large-scale structure of S. of century. for an even number of sectors with diff. the direction of the radial component of the permafrost is called. interplanetary sector structure. S.'s characteristics. (speed, temp-pa, particle concentration, etc.) also in cf. naturally change in the cross section of each sector, which is associated with the existence of a fast stream of S. v. inside the sector. The boundaries of the sectors are usually located within the slow flow of S. to. Most often, 2 or 4 sectors are observed rotating with the Sun. This structure, which is formed during S.'s pulling of century. large-scale magn. fields of the corona, can be observed for several. revolutions of the sun. The IMF sector structure is a consequence of the existence of a current sheet (TC) in the interplanetary medium, which rotates with the Sun. TC creates a jump in magn. fields - the radial components of the IMF have different signs on opposite sides of the TS. This TS, predicted by H. Alfven (N. Alfven), passes through those parts of the solar corona, which are associated with active regions on the Sun, and separates the indicated regions with decomp. signs of the radial component of the solar magn. fields. TS is located approximately in the plane of the solar equator and has a folded structure. The rotation of the Sun leads to the twisting of the TS folds in a spiral (Fig. 6). Being near the plane of the ecliptic, the observer turns out to be either higher or lower than the TS, due to which he finds himself in sectors with different signs of the radial IMF component.

Near the Sun in the northern century. there are longitudinal and latitudinal velocity gradients due to the difference in the velocities of fast and slow streams. With distance from the Sun and the steepening of the boundary between the streams in the north. radial velocity gradients arise, which lead to the formation collisionless shock waves(fig. 7). First, a shock wave is formed, propagating forward from the boundary of the sectors (direct shock wave), and then a backward shock wave propagating to the Sun is formed.

Rice. 6. The shape of the heliospheric current sheet. Its intersection with the plane of the ecliptic (inclined to the equator of the Sun at an angle of ~ 7 °) gives the observed sector structure of the interplanetary magnetic field.

Rice. 7. The structure of the interplanetary magnetic field sector. Short arrows show the direction of the solar wind plasma flow, lines with arrows - magnetic field lines, dash-dot line - sector boundaries (intersection of the plane of the figure with the current sheet).

Since the velocity of the shock wave is less than the velocity of the solar arc, the plasma carries the backward shock wave away from the sun. Shock waves near the boundaries of the sectors are formed at distances of ~ 1 AU. e. and can be traced to distances of several. a. e. These shock waves, as well as interplanetary shock waves from solar flares and near-planetary shock waves, accelerate particles and are, thus, a source of energetic particles.

C. in. extends to distances of ~ 100 AU. e., where the pressure of the interstellar medium balances the dynamic. S.'s pressure in. The cavity swept out by S. century. in the interstellar medium, forms the heliosphere (see. Interplanetary environment The expanding S. century. together with the magnesium frozen into it. field prevents galactic penetration into the solar system. cosm. rays of low energies and leads to variations in cosmic. rays of high energies. A phenomenon analogous to S. of century has also been found in some other stars (see. Stellar wind).

Lit .: Parker E. N., Dynamic processes in the interplanetary medium, trans. from English, M., 1965; B r and d t J., Solar wind, trans. from English., M., 1973; Hundhausen A., Corona expansion and solar wind, trans. from English, M., 1976. O. L. Vaysberg.