Editing Solar wind (section)

===Alfvén surface===
{{Main|Alfvén surface}}
[[File:Parker Solar Probe touches the Sun.webm|thumb|NASA animation of the [[Parker Solar Probe]] passing through the Sun's corona. Inside the corona's boundary, its Alfvén surface, plasma waves travel back and forth to the Sun's surface.]]
The Alfvén surface is the boundary separating the corona from the solar wind defined as where the coronal plasma's [[Alfvén speed]] and the large-scale solar wind speed are equal.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Adhikari |first1=L. |last2=Zank |first2=G. P. |last3=Zhao |first3=L.-L. |title=Does Turbulence Turn off at the Alfvén Critical Surface? |journal=The Astrophysical Journal |date=30 April 2019 |volume=876 |issue=1 |pages=26 |doi=10.3847/1538-4357/ab141c|bibcode=2019ApJ...876...26A |s2cid=156048833 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=DeForest |first1=C. E. |last2=Howard |first2=T. A. |last3=McComas |first3=D. J. |title=Inbound waves in the solar corona: a direct indicator of Alfvén Surface location |journal=The Astrophysical Journal |date=12 May 2014 |volume=787 |issue=2 |pages=124 |doi=10.1088/0004-637X/787/2/124|arxiv=1404.3235 |bibcode=2014ApJ...787..124D |s2cid=118371646 }}</ref>

Researchers were unsure exactly where the Alfvén critical surface of the Sun lay. Based on remote images of the corona, estimates had put it somewhere between 10 and 20 solar radii from the surface of the Sun. On April 28, 2021, during its eighth flyby of the Sun, NASA's [[Parker Solar Probe]] encountered the specific magnetic and particle conditions at 18.8 solar radii that indicated that it penetrated the Alfvén surface.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hatfield |first1=Miles |title=NASA Enters the Solar Atmosphere for the First Time |url=https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/nasa-enters-the-solar-atmosphere-for-the-first-time-bringing-new-discoveries |website=NASA |date=13 December 2021}}{{PD-notice}}</ref>