Solar Wind Disappearing

11 years ago on December 13, 1999, NASA released a report about a, roughly, two day span in May 1999 that there was no solar wind detected by earth. The solar winds decreased to such a point making it possible for scientists to observe and study actual electrons flowing to the earth from the sun's corona. So the scientists think they were getting the electrons to the similar state that they are on the surface of the sun.Actual electrons from the Sun, not diffused, not banged around in transit, even better than the real thing! The study goes on to describe an incident that they think is correlated, calling it a polar rain event that affected the North Pole with a steady glow of an aurora on May 11. This is extremely atypical for the time of year in the North Pole because the decreased amount of energetic electrons typically do not allow for the aurora effect. The lack of solar wind allowed for so many electrons to enter the earth's magnetosphere that the electric magnetic field of the earth's swelled to 6 times its usual size. 

"Normally, our view of the corona from Earth is like seeing the Sun on an overcast, cloudy day," said Dr. Jack Scudder, space physicist from the University of Iowa and principal investigator for the Hot Plasma Analyzer on NASA's Polar spacecraft. "On May 11, the clouds broke and we could see clearly."