What are “solar winds” (or other such phenomena) and how do they affect spacecraft if space is essentially emptiness and vacuum?

Question

I’ve heard how space probes use their “sails” to make use of “solar winds” to travel distances. But isn’t space just vast emptiness with no resistance/ friction?

In: 4

Answer 1

The solar wind is the stream of fast-moving charged particles that are produced in the sun’s atmosphere and “blow” outwards away from the sun. Solar wind doesn’t really “blow” spacecraft like real wind, but they can cause radiation damage, and indirectly alter the orbits of spacecraft in Earth orbit by causing the atmosphere to expand.

Solar sails use light pressure from photons, not the solar wind. Those are 2 different things. We don’t really have spacecraft that use solar sails except a few experimental ones. Light doesn’t have mass but it still has momentum, so if you have a large enough surface area, it can accelerate an object.

And yes, space is very empty, but it’s not completely empty. Even the most empty parts of space still contain some particles and some radiation.