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B.E. Wood (JILA/U. Colorado)
Only recently has it become possible to study truly solar-like coronal winds around other stars. These winds are detected indirectly through their interactions with the interstellar medium (ISM). The wind/ISM interaction regions are called "astrospheres," analogous to the "heliosphere" surrounding the Sun. Both the heliosphere and astrospheres contain a population of hot hydrogen gas created by the wind/ISM collision. This H I gas produces a substantial amount of absorption in stellar Lyman-\alpha lines observed by the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Lyman-\alpha absorption diagnostic has led to numerous measurements of mass loss rates for nearby solar-like stars. I will review the stellar wind measurements made to date, including some very new results, and I will discuss the implications of these measurements for our understanding of the solar wind. Of particular interest is an empirical determination of the mass loss history of the Sun. This work is supported by grant AR-09957 from the Space Telescope Science Institute.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: woodb@marmoset.colorado.edu
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 #2
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