The Large-Scale Structure of the Corona

Abstract

The solar corona serves as a prototype of the outer atmospheres of all cool stars. Because of its nearness we can study this prototype in more detail than any other example. Considerable progress has been made recently in understanding how the large scale structure of the solar corona controls the genesis of the solar wind and the distribution of slow and fast wind streams throughout the three-dimensional space surrounding the sun. In this review we will discuss some of the progress made in this field during the last few years. We will emphasize the observational data and the inferences that can be made more or less directly from them. T. Holzer will discuss the theoretical aspects of stellar wind acceleration in another paper in this symposium.The large scale structures of the solar corona consist essentially of three kinds: streamers, active regions and coronal holes. Figure 1 is a familiar photograph of the solar corona, obtained in white light at the total eclipse of 30 June 1973 by the High Altitude Observatory. The streamers are the petal-like structures extending out from the black lunar limb. They taper to narrow radial spikes that have been traced out as far as 10-12 solar radii (Keller, 1979). Daily measurements of the white light corona at the Mauna Loa Observatory (Hundhausen et al. 1979) and the Pic-du-Midi Observatory (Dollfus et al., 1977) since 1965 show that the streamers are fan-shaped structures that may extend 120° in solar longitude. We see them in various perspectives at the solar limb.