A giant “hole” has appeared on the surface of the sun, and it could be sending 1.8 million miles per hour solar winds toward Earth by Friday.
Discovery follows Corona hole on the Sun 30 times the size of Earth. As this first “hole” began to rotate away from us, a new giant coronal hole – 18 to 20 Earths across – appeared.
Coronal holes shoot solar winds into space, which can damage satellites and reveal stunning aurora borealis if they reach Earth.
Scientists aren’t interested in this infrastructure-destroying crater, though they say it may help trigger the aurora borealis in some parts of the world. Here’s why.
The “hole” is located near the sun’s equator
Coronal holes are fairly common, but they usually appear toward the sun’s poles, as their winds blow into space.
But while the sun is preparing for it peak activityThese holes, which occur about every 11 years, are most likely to appear near the sun’s equator, said Matthew Owens, a professor of space physics at the University of Reading.
“The presence of this object at the equator means that we are pretty much guaranteed to see some fast winds on Earth two days after it orbits past the central meridian,” he told Insider.
Coronal holes can blow out very fast solar winds, Verscharen said, at speeds of more than 800 kilometers per second. That’s about 1.8 million miles per hour.
“The shape of this coronal hole is not particularly special. However, its location makes it very interesting,” Daniel Verscharen, assistant professor of space physics and climate at University College London, told Insider.
“I expect fast winds from this coronal hole to come into the ground around Friday night into Saturday morning this week,” he said.
Coronal holes allow the solar wind to escape from the sun more easily
The sun is a big ball of plasma. This plasma travels from the sun’s interior to its surface, and it creates magnetic fields that recede, swell, collapse and merge.
A coronal hole appears when these magnetic fields shoot straight into space, according to NASA. This makes it much easier for the solar wind – bits of plasma coming from the sun – to escape into space at high speed.
These regions are generally much cooler and less dense than the hot, clashing plasma around them, which explains why they appear as dark spots on images of the Sun.
If those magnetic lines were facing the Earth, those winds would collide with our atmosphere.
“If it was pointed in the south direction, we would most likely have a space weather event, but we don’t know that yet,” Verscharn told Insider.
The aurora borealis may get brighter — but not as bright as last week
When these winds interact with our charged atmosphere, they can make the Northern Lights even brighter. But don’t expect to see them in Florida.
When the sky lit up last week With the wonderful Northern Lights Spotted as far south as Arizona, it wasn’t just due to the coronal hole.
It just happens Several coronal mass ejections – Huge explosions of plasma hurled into space – occurred around the same time the hole was facing Earth, causing a huge geomagnetic storm, which is why the impact was so powerful.
Experts said in the case of this coronary perforation, it is very unlikely that this will happen again. This is a shame for aurora lovers, but it’s probably good news for planetary defense, where powerful geomagnetic storms can wreak havoc On satellite infrastructure and radio signals.
“I doubt that will generate much excitement, unless we happen to get an Earth-oriented CME around the same time,” Owens said.
However, it is always difficult to accurately predict space weather.
“We’re really behind with our space weather forecasting and forecasting capabilities,” Verscharen said.
He added, “This is why we work so hard to understand space weather with the help of theoretical physics, plasma simulations on supercomputers, and cutting-edge observations with the latest spacecraft, such as the joint European Space Agency-NASA Solar mission.”
This article was originally published by Business interested.
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