The wind stream comes from the hole itself, which is an outstanding 50 Earths in size – meaning you could fit a few dozen of our own planet just in the dark spot on the Sunday.
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NASA says that these holes are magnetically exposed areas that generate high-speed solar winds.
A new image, from NASA’s orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory, reveals the enormous hole as it was October. 10, taken at an ultraviolet wavelength unseen by the human eye. These dark, low density regions of the corona-the sun’s outermost atmosphere-contain little solar material, have lower temperatures, and thus appear much darker than their surroundings.
In 1859 the largest and most powerful solar storm ever recorded, also known as the Carrington Event or the Carrington Flare in honour of the English Astronomer Richard Carrington who observed it, was detected at the Colaba Observatory in India. However, the storm was also the cause of power outages and fires at telegraph system facilities all over Europe and North America.
The gap in the sun’s magnetic field lets out a stream of particles traveling at up to 500 miles (800 kilometers) per second, kindling a days-long geomagnetic storm upon hitting Earth.
Two of the most widely used indices for measuring geomagnetic storms are the Dst (Disturbance storm time) and a more precise version called SYM-H -.
However, alarmingly, this flare that Tihany recorded in 2003 went completely unnoticed by other observatories around the world, which incited a study to be conducted by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology, published in the Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate, to examine why the indices failed to detect the storm.
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A gash in the sun’s outer layer and its magnetic field has set off a series of nighttime aurora displays on Earth. Thus, bright auroras will likely continue at least around the Arctic Circle.
