| The sphere in the middle shows high (red) and low (dark blue) speed wind regions. The two side panels show the magnetic structure, in particular showing the ballerina skirt structure of the heliospheric current sheet (dark blue). The yellow lines are field lines. The ones in the slow wind region are curved more, as expected. The lines represent the stationary pattern that results given the small flows that inevitably result from current sheet pressure imbalances (thermal and magnetic pressures do not have the same radial scaling). From computer simulations by D. Aaron Roberts and Melvyn L. Goldstein at NASA/GSFC, Laboratory for Extraterrestrial Physics, and Anil Deane at the Institute of Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland College Park |