The corona is a layer of hot plasma that surrounds the Sun, traces out its complex magnetic field, and ultimately expands into interplanetary space as the supersonic solar wind. This complex and unpredictable system varies over many orders of magnitude in space and time, so it's not surprising that we still do not have a complete theoretical understanding of its origins. In this talk, I will present some new observations and theoretical concepts that are helping us get closer to finally identifying and characterizing the physical processes responsible for the corona and solar wind. This will involve data from ground-based telescopes such as DKIST, space telescopes that observe in UV and X-ray wavelengths, and interplanetary probes such as Solar Orbiter and Parker Solar Probe. The theoretical concepts involve waves, turbulent eddies, and their evolution together with particles in collisionless plasmas. I hope to also discuss how this work feeds into the practical world of "space weather forecasting" and how it is being extended to better understand the high-energy activity and dynamic outflows of other stars. There are many lessons to be learned from the decades of advancements that came before us, and I will highlight some insightful work from my own mentors. Also, I am excited to talk about the great work being done on these topics by CU Boulder students. Lastly, I will conclude with future plans, including a brief review of new instruments over the next decade that will help us test (i.e., conclusively validate or falsify) our fanciful theoretical ideas.
a joint institute of 
and 
and