New research led by University of Warwick physicist Dr. Kareem
Osman has provided significant insight into how the solar wind
heats up when it should not. The solar wind rushes outwards from
the raging inferno that is our Sun, but from then on the wind
should only get cooler as it expands beyond our solar system
since there are no particle collisions to dissipate energy.
However, the solar wind is surprisingly hotter than it should
be, which has puzzled scientists for decades. Two new research
papers led by Dr. Osman may have solved that puzzle. Turbulence
pervades the universe, being found in stars, stellar winds,
accretion disks, galaxies, and even the material between
galaxies. It also plays a critical role in the evolution of many
laboratory plasmas, causing diminished confinement times in
fusion devices. Therefore, understanding plasma turbulence is
essential to the interpretation of a large body of laboratory,
space, and astrophysical observations. The solar wind and near-
Earth environment provide an ex