Our sun is essentially a searing hot sphere of gas. Its mix of primarily hydrogen and helium can reach temperatures between 10,000 and 3.6 million degrees Fahrenheit on its surface and its atmosphere’s outermost layer. Because of that heat, the blazing orb constantly oozes a stream of plasma, made up of charged subatomic particles — mainly protons and electrons. The sun’s gravity can’t contain them because they hold so much energy as heat, so they drift away into space as solar wind. Understanding how charged particles as solar wind interact with other transient eruptions of energy from the sun can help scientists study cosmic rays emitted in supernova explosions. 

Thomas Do, an astronomy graduate student at Michigan State University, published a paper predicting how particles accelerate under a wider net of circumstances than previous models. His model could be applied to solar storms that impact technology in space.