Wind as the Earth to evolve into planets like Venus. Additionally, planets with hotter lower atmospheres could accelerate the loss rate of hydrogen. Rather than air, the solar wind is a stream of charged particles—a plasma—ejected from the upper atmosphere of the sun at a rate of . It consists mostly of electrons and protons with energies of about 1 keV. The stream of particles varies in temperature and speed with the passage of time. These particles are able to escape the sun's gravity, in part because of the high temperature of the corona, but also because of high kinetic energy
Plasma Instrument for Magnetic Sounding magnetic sounding, currents induced in Europa by the changing Jovian plasma produce a detectable secondary magnetic field that reflects properties of Europa's subsurface ocean such as depth and conductivity. PIMS is composed of three Faraday cups, each with a 90º field of view. The cups measure the current produced on metal collector plates by charged particles with sufficient energy per charge (E/q) to pass through a modulated retarding grid placed at variable high voltage. In the Jovian magnetospheric plasma PIMS measures the density and flow velocity of ions with energies below 7 keV, and the density and energy of electrons