BRENT: A massive hole opened up recently on the Sun’s surface could swallow up as many as 50 Earths at once, the National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) said in a newly released statement.
The newly detected hole is in the topmost layer of the Sun. It ripped through the magnetic field, sending supercharged particles hurtling toward Earth. These solar winds are colliding with Earth’s magnetic field, resulting in spectacular light shows as well as notable disruptions to radios and satellites.
The hole was first detected by NASA’s orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) on October 10. The observatory used a special ultraviolet wavelength instrument to capture images of the hole, which is invisible to the human eye even during sunrise or sunset.
NASA said in a statement, “The high-speed solar wind originating from this coronal hole, imaged here on Oct. 10, 2015, by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, created a geomagnetic storm near Earth that resulted in several nights of Auroras. The image was taken in wavelengths of 193 Angstroms, which is invisible to our eyes…”
It allowed charged particles to fly out at a whopping speed of 500 miles per second. Ones the particles slam into our atmosphere, they result in geomagnetic storms that are both spectacular to watch in an area close to the poles and harmful to satellites.
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