Hi, we're here from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes.

I'm Cody Gough.

And I'm Ashley Hamer.

Today you learn about a new discovery about rain on the sun, why flamingos stand on one leg,

and why you blink the way you do when you're watching a movie.

Let's satisfy some curiosity.

A new discovery about the sun could create a new link between two of the biggest mysteries in solar physics.

Before I get into that though, I should probably ask,

did you know that it rains on the sun?

It's not a rain of water, it's actually a rain of superheated gas.

And understanding how it works is important. So here goes.

The sun is a ball of hydrogen and helium that's constantly fusing elements together.

The sun is also a hotbed of magnetic activity that periodically belches out rivers of charged particles.

When Earth gets in the way, those charged particles can cause auroras in the high atmosphere,

and can even short out satellites.

And that's a part of how the sun's rain works too.

The elements that make up the sun are mostly in the form of plasma,

which is an electrically charged gas.

Plasma tends to flow along magnetic loops of material that spring up from the sun's surface and back down again.

The track that plasma follows up and out of the sun is kind of like a car on a roller coaster.

At the peak of the loop, like at the top of the roller coaster, plasma is at its coolest because

it's farthest away from the sun.

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