The sun, for all its glitz, tends to hide behind a veil of mystery. For instance, its outer atmosphere, the corona, appears to be hotter than its surface — like, way hotter — and scientists aren't sure why. There's also a big puzzle concerning how the solar wind, which is a stream of charged particles emanating from the sun, gets accelerated while zooming through space. What exactly drives those particles? And soon, NASA intends to tackle yet another solar conundrum that has to do with both the corona and the solar wind.
The agency wants to know how one turns into the other — and learn how this connection ultimately creates the solar wind chamber we live in, known as the heliosphere.
