Stellar corona
In astronomy, a corona (pl.: coronas or coronae) is the outermost layer of a star’s atmosphere. It is a region filled with relatively hot, tenuous plasma that is structured by the star’s magnetic field.
Scientists have greater access to the solar corona than they do to other stellar coronae, since it is inside our solar system1. This means that the coronae of other stars are still relatively poorly understood.
Corona (Latin for ‘crown’) is, in turn, derived from Ancient Greek κορώνη * (korṓnē)* ‘garland, wreath’.
Printed 2026-09-13.
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Footnotes
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Franzen, Harald. “Astronomers Find Optical Light from the Corona of a Star Other Than Our Sun”. Scientific American. Retrieved January 30, 2026. ↩