Stellar wind

A stellar wind is a continuous outflow of charged particles from a star’s outer atmosphere into surrounding space. It carries energy and magnetic fields away from the star and can shape its surroundings.

Stellar corona: The hot, tenuous outer atmosphere of a star. Its high temperature supplies particles that escape as stellar wind.
Solar wind: The stream of charged particles flowing outward from the Sun’s atmosphere. It is the nearest and most directly measured example of stellar wind.
Magnetosphere: The region around an astronomical body where its magnetic field controls charged-particle motion. A planet’s magnetosphere deflects and channels particles from the stellar wind.
Radiation-driven wind: A stellar wind accelerated when radiation transfers momentum to matter, often through spectral lines. This mechanism dominates winds from many hot, luminous stars.
Planetary nebula: An expanding shell of gas shed by a low- or intermediate-mass star late in its life. Earlier stellar winds help shape the nebula’s gas before and during its formation.
Parker solar wind model: A theory explaining how a hot stellar corona expands continuously into space. It describes how coronal pressure drives a wind beyond the star’s gravitational reach.
Parker Solar Probe: A NASA spacecraft launched in 2018 to study the Sun’s corona and solar wind. Its close passes sample the wind near its source.
Space weather: Conditions in space driven by activity on the Sun and other stars. Variations in solar wind shape near-Earth space and can disrupt technology.
Parker wind: A thermally driven, steady outflow from a hot atmosphere under gravity. It isolates the pressure-driven mechanism underlying the classic solar-wind model.
Bow shock: A curved shock formed when an object moves through a surrounding fluid faster than disturbances travel. A star’s motion can make its wind pile up into a bow-shaped shock.

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