A giant hole has opened up in the Sun’s surface, which could soon send solar wind measuring millions of miles per hour toward Earth.
The coronal hole is 20 times larger than our planet and is the second of its kind detected last week.
The solar wind will take effect on Friday. The first crater triggered auroras across the sky visible from Earth, and the effects of the second are currently being observed.
Coronal holes appear as dark spots in images of the Sun when they are taken using ultraviolet and X-rays. Holes are less dense than the rest of the star, which means the solar wind is able to escape into space more easily.
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Winds can potentially affect Earth’s magnetic field as well as satellites and technology.
Both craters were spotted by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. NASA released a statement saying: “Coronal holes are magnetically exposed regions that are a source of the high-speed solar wind.
“They appear dark when seen in many wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light, as seen here. Sometimes, the solar wind can create auroras at Earth’s high latitudes.”
Impacts are not normally a danger to Earth, but the location of the second hole is right on the Sun’s equator which makes it a different proposition.
“The shape of this coronal hole is not very special. However, its location makes it very interesting,” Daniel Verscharen, associate professor of space and climate physics at University College London, said in an interview. internal.
“I would expect some brisk winds from the coronal hole Friday night into Saturday morning of this week.”
Meanwhile, it was recently revealed that part of the star has left the surface and is spinning around the top as if it were a giant polar vortex, no one really knows why.
Not only this, scientists recently said that it is giving off a signal that resembles a ‘heartbeat’.
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