The Sun Develops a ‘Coronal Hole’ as Big as 20 Earths

The Sun Develops a ‘Coronal Hole’ as Big as 20 Earths

A little over one year ago, I noted that there had been a substantial uptick in solar activity.

It is reported that the Sun has developed a massive “hole” 20 times larger than Earth, the second occurrence within the last seven days.

The coronal hole is unleashing solar winds of 2.9 million km/h toward Earth, which will hit our planet on Friday.

Scientists are carefully monitoring the situation to assess if the winds will impact our planet’s magnetic field and satellites – with the potential for knock-on effects on the internet, mobile phone networks, and GPS.

Coronal holes are usually harmless, experts say and are usually found near the sun’s poles.

They are cooler, less dense areas of the star and appear during the less active stage of the sun’s 11-year cycle.

The earlier hole, observed on March 23rd, resulted in solar winds that created auroras visible as far south as Arizona.

Coronal holes are regions of open magnetic fields that appear as dark areas in the corona – the outermost part of the sun’s atmosphere.

They appear dark on optical and X-ray images and are characterised by lower temperatures and density than the surrounding parts of the corona.

Some coronal holes are so big that they take up approximately one quarter of the sun’s surface.

Coronal holes were first spotted by NASA’s Skylab in the early 1970s, but scientists still aren’t completely sure what causes them to form.

They may appear at any time of the solar cycle – the cycle that the sun’s magnetic field goes through about every 11 years – but they are most common during the declining phase of the cycle.

What makes this hole of interest to scientists is its location, close to the equator.

Daniel Verscharen an associate professor of space and climate physics at University College London, said the location of the hole was “very interesting”.

“The shape of this coronal hole is not particularly special. However, its location makes it very interesting,” he told Business Insider.

“I would expect some fast wind from that coronal hole to come to Earth around Friday night into Saturday morning of this week.”

While the solar wind from the new is not expected to cause major disruptions, a solar flare this January fired out a red-hot plasma dome which caused a shortwave radio blackout in Australia and New Zealand.

If we were squandering money and resources on climate crisis pseudoscience, more effective methods of predicting and responding to Carrington events (first described after an 1859 solar flare strike) and studying the Sun might already be developed on their way to being so.

The Carrington Event sparked a huge geomagnetic storm that wreaked havoc with technology. Earth fell silent as telegraph communications around the world failed.

According to History.com(opens in new tab), there were reports of sparks showering from telegraph machines, operators receiving electric shocks and papers set ablaze by the rogue sparks.

Striking auroras dazzled skywatchers around the world as polar light shows stretched far beyond their usual ranges. The northern lights (aurora borealis) were witnessed as far south as Cuba and Honolulu, Hawaii, whilst the southern lights (aurora australis) were seen as far north as Santiago, Chile, according to National Geographic(opens in new tab).

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