Dr. Lakshmi Pradeep Chitta

Charged particles continuously escape the magnetized solar atmosphere as high speed winds at 300-800 km/s and fill interplanetary space. How does the solar wind emerge from the Sun? Which magnetic processes drive it into the heliosphere? Answering these questions will provide important clues on the fundamental plasma process operating in the solar atmosphere and will help to fully connect the Sun–heliosphere system. Magnetic fields on sub-granular (a few 100 km) to global (a few 100 Mm) scales are thought to play a role in generating and shaping the solar wind as it emerges from the Sun. Using new observations from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite’s Solar Ultraviolet Imager and Solar Orbiter's Extreme-Ultraviolet Imager (EUI), and data-driven global MHD models, in this talk I will present the large and small scale sources of the solar wind. I will also discuss the crucial role of magnetic reconnection, a fundamental astrophysical process, in the generation of the solar wind.