A study conducted by the University of Wisconsin has used helium to help mimick solar winds in the lab. Affecting nearly everything in the solar system, the sun’s solar winds can disrupt the function of the Earth’s satellites.
For the study, the researchers used a big red ball to replicate the sun (a big ball of plasma). The ball was a three-meters-wide hollow sphere, with a strong magnet in the centre and various probes inside.
In the solar system, as the sun spins the plasma spins too. The plasma movement in the core of the sun produces magnetic fields which fill the solar atmosphere. At the Alfvén surface (some distance from the sun’s surface) the magnetic field weakens, the plasma breaks away and solar wind is created.
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