... Belts . ... Speed of motion is " kinetic energy ", like the energy of a turning flywheel or of the wind hitting a windmill, both of which can move machinery. ... As the hot gas of the corona--a plasma, really--expands upwards, its heat is converted to the kinetic energy of a fast flow, streaming outwards: the solar wind . Four or five days after leaving the Sun, solar wind plasma hits the magnetosphere, an obstacle in its path. ... How is solar wind energy transmitted to the magnetosphere? ...