The flow of neutral or charged gas ejected from a star’s upper atmosphere is referred to as the stellar wind. It is distinguished by the less collimated bipolar outflow characteristics of a young star. However, stellar winds are not spherically symmetric.
If you’ve seen the movie “Finding Nemo”, you’ll remember the scene where Nemo’s dad Marlin and his new companion Dory get directions to Sydney from a school of moonfish and ride the East Australian Current with a group of sea turtles. That ocean current is very much like a jet stream; only it’s high up in the air, located between the troposphere and stratosphere (the first and second layers of the earth’s atmosphere).
The magnetopause is the layer that acts as the Earth’s shield from the solar wind. It is found between the surrounding plasma and magnetosphere or the magnetic field. The surface of the magnetopause has a complex shape. It flaps, ripples, and moves in different directions, inward or outward, depending on the solar wind conditions. The magnetopause changes its shapes as a response to the solar wind. The shocked solar wind or the magneto sheath plasma is able to flow around [...]
A jet or jet stream is a very fast current of wind found high in the atmosphere of some planets including our own. A jet usually is a westerly wind, flowing from the west to the east, its path typically meandering. It’s very much like a river or an ocean current, often as fast as 230 miles (370 km) per hour, starting as one stream, stopping, splitting into two or more parts, combining into one stream, or flowing in various [...]
If you recall your science lessons from school, you know that the earth is surrounded by several layers of air called the atmosphere, as do the other planets in the solar system. It is what allows us to breathe—it lets breathable air circulate within the boundaries it creates and even protects us from objects which may fall from outer space. The layers include: troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is comprised of the outer portion of the mesosphere, [...]