9 July

1999: On 9 July 1999, solar scientists announced that they may have solved a long-standing enigma about the Sun.

Working on data gathered from the ESA's SOHO and NASA's Spartan 201 spacecraft, researchers found that the solar wind streams out of the Sun by 'surfing' waves in the Sun's atmosphere.

The solar wind is made up of electrons and ions (electrically charged atoms that have lost electrons).