Polar wind

The polar wind or plasma fountain is a permanent outflow of plasma from the polar regions of Earth's magnetosphere. Conceptually similar to the solar wind, it is one of several mechanisms for the outflow of ionized particles. Ions accelerated by a polarization electric field known as an ambipolar electric field is believed to be the primary cause of polar wind. Similar processes operate on other planets.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.