Posted on 07/29/2013 8:42:29 AM PDT by betty boop
A 'gigantic hole' in the sun's atmosphere, hovering over the solar north pole, has been photographed by a space telescope. The dark spot, which covers almost a quarter of the sun, is a large 'coronal hole' — a dark, low density region of the sun’s outermost atmosphere, the corona.
It was spotted by the European Space Agency/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft between 13 and 18 July, during which time it was spewing out material including solar wind into space.
While the hole looks devoid of solar activity, it was in fact releasing violent blasts of solar wind and spewing out solar particles at around 500 miles per second.
The holes have lower temperatures and therefore appear much darker than their surroundings.
Karen Fox of Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre said that while coronal holes are a typical feature on the sun, they appear at different places and with more frequency at different times of the sun’s activity cycle, which typically takes around 11 years....
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
That’s not funny, that’s sick! :)
Indeed — I so agree! Jeepers, we're right "in the neighborhood." Somebody please explain to me why this extraordinary solar activity does NOT affect the weather. Not to mention all forms of energetic transmissions (radio, microwave, etc.).
It's letting out all that harmful UV radiation, no doubt.
Oops!
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