Solar Wind
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the phenomenon behind the auroras at Earth's poles, the stream of charged particles spreading out from the Sun to the border of the solar system.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the flow of particles from the outer region of the Sun which we observe in the Northern and Southern Lights, interacting with Earth's magnetosphere, and in comet tails that stream away from the Sun regardless of their own direction. One way of defining the boundary of the solar system is where the pressure from the solar wind is balanced by that from the region between the stars, the interstellar medium. Its existence was suggested from the C19th and Eugene Parker developed the theory of it in the 1950s and it has been examined and tested by a series of probes in C20th up to today, with more planned.
With
Andrew Coates
Professor of Physics and Deputy Director in charge of the Solar System at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London
Helen Mason OBE
Reader in Solar Physics at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, Fellow at St Edmund's College
And
Tim Horbury
Professor of Physics at Imperial College London
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Last on
![]()
Everything you need to know about solar wind
Exploring the phenomenon behind the auroras at Earth's poles.
LINKS AND FURTHER READING
Μύ
READING LIST:
Wolfgang Baumjohann and Rudolf A. Treumann, Basic Space Plasma Physics (Imperial College Press, 1996)
Pal Brekke, Our Explosive Sun: A Visual Feast of Our Source of Light and Life (Springer, 2012)
Stuart Clark, The Sun Kings: The Unexpected Tragedy of Richard Carrington and the Tale of How Modern Astronomy Began (Princeton University Press, 2009)
Thomas E. Cravens, Physics of Solar System Plasmas (Cambridge University Press, 1997)
Leon Golub and Jay M. Pasachoff, The Sun (Reaktion Books, 2017)
Lucie Green, 15 Million Degrees: A Journey to the Centre of the Sun (Penguin, 2016)
Margaret G. Kivelson and Christopher T. Russell, Introduction to Space Physics (Cambridge University Press, 1995)
Kenneth R. Lang, Sun, Earth and Sky (Springer, 1995)
Nicole Meyer-Vernet, Basics of the Solar Wind (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
Kenneth J. H. Phillips, Guide to the Sun (Cambridge University Press, 1992)
C. T. Russell, J. G. Luhmann and R. J. Strangeway, Space Physics: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2016)
Μύ
Broadcasts
- Thu 23 Jan 2020 09:00Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
- Thu 23 Jan 2020 21:30Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
Featured in...
![]()
Science—In Our Time
Scientific principles, theory, and the role of key figures in the advancement of science.
In Our Time podcasts
Download programmes from the huge In Our Time archive.
The In Our Time Listeners' Top 10
If you’re new to In Our Time, this is a good place to start.
Arts and Ideas podcast
Download the best of Radio 3's Free Thinking programme.
Podcast
-
![]()
In Our Time
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.
