space.com: Astronomers have finally tracked down the missing starting point of one of the two types of solar wind.

The solar wind is a stream of electrically charged particles that flows constantly out from the sun in all directions. The particles can make the journey from the sun to the Earth in fewer than 10 days and, when the wind turns into a storm, create the magnificent auroras that dance across polar skies when they interact with the Earth's magnetic field.

The parts of the solar wind that emanate from the sun's equatorial region originate at the edges of bright regions in the sun's atmosphere and are released when the magnetic fields of two bright regions link up, scientists announced last week at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting in Belfast, Northern Ireland.