About us
The Solar Wind Sherpas is an international team of scientists, engineers, and explorers dedicated to the observation and study of total solar eclipses. Founded in 1995 by Dr. Shadia R. Habbal, the team has since expanded from six original members to over thirty active participants from around the world. What unites them is a shared commitment to uncovering the physical mechanisms that sustain the solar corona at temperatures exceeding one million degrees.
True to their name, the Sherpas carry extensive, highly specialized equipment to remote and often challenging observation sites—locations chosen for their strategic alignment with the path of totality. To date, the team has conducted over 20 expeditions across the globe, including to India, Libya, China, the Arctic, Indonesia, Australia, Chile, the United States, and Mexico, among many others.
Our scientific mission focuses on one of the most enduring mysteries of astrophysics: the origin and dynamics of the solar wind. By capturing high-resolution images of the corona in white light and through narrow-band filters targeting specific ion emission lines (e.g., Fe XI, Fe XIV), we generate diagnostic maps of temperature distribution and magnetic topology. These observations help us trace the behavior of highly ionized elements, whose emissions are shaped by the Sun’s magnetic field.
The corona becomes visible to the naked eye only during a total solar eclipse. It is in those fleeting minutes of darkness that we gain access to a region otherwise hidden, where physical conditions defy simple explanation and continue to challenge our understanding of stellar atmospheres.
Our team is one of the very few worldwide who has capitalized on the diagnostic potential of multi-wavelength observations of coronal emission lines, leading to a number of discoveries, as demonstrated by our publications. Each eclipse brings new discoveries that contribute to answering key questions in solar physics:
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Why is the corona so hot?
Where does the solar wind originate?
What controls the stability of magnetic structures?
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At the heart of our work is the acknowledgement that solar science and exploration go hand in hand. The pursuit of knowledge takes us to remote deserts, polar regions, and mountaintops—not only to witness a celestial event, but to decode the forces that shape our star and, by extension, life on Earth.