The Forming Slow Solar Wind Imaged along Streamer Rays by the Wide-Angle Imager on Parker Solar Probe
Abstract
The Wide-field Imager for Solar PRobe (WISPR) recorded the first detailed imaging of streamer rays when Parker Solar Probe was in quasi-corotation with the corona. We exploit these new images to reveal the time and space variability in these streamers at scales that are not easily discernible in images taken from near 1AU, this provides new insights on the forming slow solar wind. WISPR images are projected into Carrington like maps to reveal the multiple white-light structures of a streamer observed during the first perihelion passage. We exploit 3-D magneto-hydrodynamic models to study the origin of these sub-structures and interpret them as small corrugation in the streamers and heliospheric current sheets. High-resolution simulations explain a number of observational features observed by WISPR including the effect of the spacecraft moving at high speed towards the individual streamer rays that make up a streamer. Finally we highlight the level of temporal variability in the streamers induced by propagating density structures likely induced by time-dependent processes occurring in the corona. This work was funded by the European Research Council through the project SLOW_SOURCE - DLV-819189.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMSH12A..08P
- Keywords:
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- 7509 Corona;
- SOLAR PHYSICS;
- ASTROPHYSICS;
- AND ASTRONOMY;
- 7513 Coronal mass ejections;
- SOLAR PHYSICS;
- ASTROPHYSICS;
- AND ASTRONOMY;
- 7845 Particle acceleration;
- SPACE PLASMA PHYSICS;
- 7867 Wave/particle interactions;
- SPACE PLASMA PHYSICS