The study of the sun and its interaction with Earth and the solar system is called Heliophysics and allows us to understand solar wind and space weather.
It requires viewing the sun, heliosphere, and planetary environments as elements of a single interconnected system – one that contains dynamic space weather, and that evolves in response to solar, planetary and interstellar conditions.
Heliophysical research connects directly to a broader web of physical processes that naturally expand its reach beyond NASA’s narrow view that limits it to the solar system: heliophysics reaches from solar physics out to stellar physics in general, involves several branches of nuclear physics, plasma physics, space physics and magnetospheric physics. The science of heliophysics lies at the foundation of the study of space weather, and is also directly involved in understanding planetary habitability.
