Gas Dynamics of Solar and Stellar Winds
By Bhimsen Shivamoggi
Eugene Parker’s model has been extended to young star formation processes.
This Article From Issue
March-April 2024
Volume 112, Number 2
Page 108
In June 2011, a group of astrophysicists ventured up the side of a mountain in the Austrian Alps. Hiking in the lead, moving effortlessly, was a spry figure who was none other than Eugene Parker, the eminent astrophysicist from the University of Chicago, aged 84 at the time. This Alpine climb was an excursion from an international meeting that took place in a mountain village in Tyrol, known for being the birthplace and final resting place of Erwin Schrödinger, one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics.
QUICK TAKE
- In 1958, Eugene Parker proposed that the high thermal conductivity of the solar corona could overcome the Sun’s gravitational force and escape, producing a solar wind.
- Parker’s solar wind concept was not immediately accepted, but it was confirmed within a few years using measurements from American and Soviet space probes.
- Fine-tuning Parker’s concepts has led researchers to a better understanding of the development, behavior, and significance of solar and stellar winds, especially for young stars.
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