The Sun is ramping up for its solar maximum and recently experts announced they predict it’s coming much sooner than expected, like next month soon. That will include some of the most extreme solar activity we’ve seen in over a decade and now NASA is reporting an extreme coronal hole 60 times the size of our planet.
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00:00 The sun is ramping up for its solar maximum, and recently experts announced they predict
00:07 it's coming much sooner than expected, like possibly next month soon.
00:11 That will include some of the most extreme solar activity we've seen in over a decade,
00:16 and now NASA is reporting a massive coronal hole, 60 times the size of our planet.
00:22 Experts say this particular spot is 500,000 miles long.
00:25 Coronal holes are essentially giant sunspots, cooler areas of the solar surface where the
00:29 sun's magnetic field lines open into space.
00:32 This allows the release of solar winds, which can send solar storms hurling out into the
00:36 cosmos, and experts say this one was pointed right at us.
00:39 The results of the massive coronal hole and solar winds striking our planet ended up being
00:44 little more than a solar storm, fairly noticeable.
00:46 However, some events like this can be much more intense, like the geomagnetic storm in
00:51 1859, one now referred to as the Carrington event.
00:54 That storm created not only the wild auroras we expect from intense solar activity, but
00:58 it also knocked out communications all over the world, and there were even reports of
01:02 telegraph operators receiving electric shocks.
01:05 Experts agree that if a similar event occurred today, it would be utterly catastrophic, as
01:09 we are now far more reliant than ever on technology.
01:13 [music]