Solar wind

Solar wind is a gas of charged particles known as plasma, a state of matter governed by its own set physical laws just as the more common solids, liquids, and gases are. As the solar wind sweeps out into space, it creates a space environment filled with radiation as well as magnetic fields that trail all the way back to the sun. This space environment is augmented by interstellar cosmic rays and occasional concentrated clouds of solar material that burst off the sun, known as coronal mass ejections.

The solar wind near our Sun's surface contains alternating streams of high and low speed. These streams corotate (rotate along) with the Sun. The high-speed streams originate in coronal holes and extend toward the solar poles; the low-speed streams come from near the Sun's equator. There are compositional differences between the high and low speed streams of the solar wind.