Picoflare jets power the solar wind emerging from a coronal hole on the Sun

Investigating Solar Wind Outflows from Open-Closed Magnetic Field Structures Using Coordinated Solar Orbiter and Hinode Observations

ESA/NASA's Solar Orbiter (SO) enables us to study the solar corona at closer distances and from different perspectives, which helps us to gain significant insights into the origin of the solar wind. In this work, we present the analysis of solar wind outflows from two locations: a narrow open-field corridor and a small, mid-latitude coronal hole. These outflows were observed off-limb by the Metis coronagraph onboard SO and on-disk by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) onboard Hinode. Magnetic field extrapolations suggest that the upflow regions seen in EIS were the sources of the outflowing solar wind observed with Metis. We find that the plasma associated with the narrow open-field corridor has higher electron densities and lower outflow velocities compared to the coronal hole plasma in the middle corona, even though the plasma properties of the two source regions in the low corona are found to be relatively similar. The speed of the solar wind from the open-field corridor also shows no correlation with the magnetic field expansion factor, unlike the coronal hole. These pronounced differences at higher altitudes may arise from the dynamic nature of the low-middle corona, in which reconnection can readily occur and may play an important role in driving solar wind variability.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11207-025-02438-8.

Thin jets underlie the solar wind

Solar Orbiter images reveal widespread magnetic plasma jets at the roots of the solar wind.