Magnetic Reconnection as the Driver of the Solar Wind

We present an overview of EUV solar observations showing evidence for ubiquitous small-scale jetting activity (i.e., a.k.a. jetlets) driven by magnetic reconnection that might be the primary driver of the solar wind at its source. The jetlets, like the solar wind and the heating of the coronal plasma, are omnipresent throughout the solar cycle. Each event arises from small-scale reconnection of opposite polarity magnetic fields producing a short-lived jet of hot plasma and Alfvén waves into the corona. The discrete nature of the jetlets leads to intermittent outflows from the corona, which homogenize as they propagate away from the Sun and form the solar wind. This discovery establishes the importance of small-scale magnetic reconnection in solar and stellar atmospheres in understanding ubiquitous phenomena such as coronal heating and solar wind acceleration. Based on previous analyses linking the switchbacks to the magnetic network, we also argue that these new observations might provide the link between the magnetic activity at the base of the corona and the switchback solar wind phenomenon. These new observations need to be put in the bigger picture of the role of magnetic reconnection and the diverse form of jetting in the solar atmosphere.