Solar wind Solar wind The solar wind is a stream of charged particles released from the upper atmosphere of the Sun, called the corona. This plasma consists of mostly electrons, protons and alpha particles with kinetic energy between 0.5 and 10 keV. Embedded within the solar-wind plasma is the interplanetary magnetic field. The solar wind varies in density, temperature and speed over time and over solar latitude and longitude. Its particles can escape the Sun's gravity because of their high energy resulting from the high temperature of the corona, which in turn is a result of the coronal magnetic field. At a
Degree of ionization plasma is in a "Coulomb-collision dominated regime", i.e. when formula_9, which can correspond to a degree of ionization as low as 0.01%. A "partially" or "weakly ionized gas" means the plasma is not dominated by Coulomb collisions, i.e. when formula_10. A particular case of fully ionizes gases are very hot thermonuclear plasmas, such as plasmas artificially produced in nuclear explosions or naturally formed in our Sun and all stars in the universe. Stars contain largely hydrogen and helium gases, that are "fully ionized" into electrons, protons (H) and helium ions (He). Equations to characterize such very hot, fully ionized thermonuclear