Magnetic sail significant in the long term. In typical magnetic sail designs, the magnetic field is generated by a loop of superconducting wire. Because loops of current-carrying conductors tend to be forced outwards towards a circular shape by their own magnetic field, the sail could be deployed simply by unspooling the conductor and applying a current through it. The solar wind is a continuous stream of plasma that flows outwards from the Sun: near the Earth's orbit, it contains several million protons and electrons per cubic meter and flows at . The magnetic sail introduces a magnetic field into this plasma flow
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