Click on the image above for a larger .gif version.

This lovely pastel spaghetti represents the author's view of the structure of the solar wind: nearly independent flux tubes that originate in distinct (but presently unknown) features near the photosphere. The paper presenting this cartoon is 25 pages of turgid JGRese, but is pretty convincing. One striking implication is that the domain of any truly turbulent behavior is restricted (cf Taylor's hypothesis of frozen-in turbulence). Was the cartoon colored by the author's hypothetical children?

7 February 2010
27 April 2012