Solar wind observations near the sun

Observations of interplanetary scintillations with the VLA telescope are reported. The solar wind in the accelerating region from 3 to 12 solar radii was observed by scintillation of the radio source 3C279. The results obtained outside of 7 solar radii showed good agreement with previous work but observations between 3 and 4.5 solar radii were new and unexpected. Turbulence in the solar wind has a spatially anisotropic structure elongated in the radial direction, the flow direction being also in the radial direction. An abrupt change of both the velocity and the spatial anisotropy of turbulence was found at distances from 3 to 4.5 solar radii. There is a large random velocity component inside of 12 solar radii which is comparable to the bulk flow speed, and it has a spatially anisotropic probability distribution. From the measured cross-correlation functions, evidence which may be related to the complex structure of the magnetic field is found.