5 ms·

Well, sort of. Solar wind does include oxygen ions, so it's exposed to a small extent.

• slow_typist 5mo ago
  How can it include oxygen?
  • floam 5mo ago
    Stars make it, our sun is made of it, it’s the third most abundant element. Distant third
    • yubblegum 5mo ago
      Somehwat surprised to see there are twice more Oxygen atoms than Carbon.
      • kortex 5mo ago
        Carbon + helium fusion is rather favorable, vs carbon production by the triple alpha process (3He), so it's just reaction kinetics essentially.
  • Groxx 5mo ago
    Stars kinda famously fuse elements up to iron as part of normal operations. And even if you exclude that, the entire solar system is leftovers from a previous star - all that is inside our current star too. Sure, much of it isn't at the surface, but there's not much of a reason to expect that literally zero of it randomly floats up among the lighter elements. Have a reference tho: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind
    • JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
      That said, "heavy ions and atomic nuclei of elements such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, neon, magnesium, silicon, sulfur, and iron" makes up only "trace amounts" of the solar-wind plasma [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind
    • L_226 5mo ago
      > our current star Looking forward to seeing the next one!
      • ygra 5mo ago
        We first need to get rid of the current one in a few billion years. That won't end well for Earth, though.
        • Groxx 5mo ago
          Earth is just part of the same recycling collection plan, it's fine.