Two Huge Holes In the Sun Spotted

An anonymous reader writes "Japanese scientists have spotted two huge holes on the sun's magnetic field, and it appears there is some reason to be concerned about. The holes, called coronal holes, are gateways for solar material and gas to spill out into space, according to space.com. The gaps in the sun's magnetic field make a hole through its atmosphere, letting gas out, NASA has said."

Comments

NASA link

[sustik]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sdo/news/news20110111-corona-hole.html

more info...

So...

[lolololol]

Why is there reason to be "concerned"? It is an interesting find, but that solar gas won't do much to harm Earth.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I've been a ham radio operator for a long time, and have seen this sort of thing occasionally.

No, it won't directly harm us, but it could wreak havoc on the radio spectrum.

Depending on what exactly happens, we hams may see some terrific "skip" conditions on the shortwave
bands, or we may experience a near-complete wipe-out where nothing gets through, let alone bouncing
off a layer in the upper atmosphere. It may also disrupt some satellite links depending on the position of
the various satellites relative to the wave of incoming particles/stuff and which way the satellites are aimed
towards their ground stations.

Folks in higher latitudes may be treated to an incredible display of "Northern Lights" or "Southern Lights" as appropriate.
Considering we're just now coming out of a minimum in the 11 year sunspot cycle, this is indeed an interesting event.

Re:So...

[MBaldelli]

Why is there reason to be "concerned"? It is an interesting find, but that solar gas won't do much to harm Earth.

Having done a little scanning of this news from the source of the article, NASA, Space Weather, this is hardly rare and not the sign of an impending stellar apocalypse. From the less credible sources, the concerns that are sort of just below the surface is that the sun's going to lose it's fuel because of these holes in much the same manner as it was originally thought if we were to sent rockets into space would punch holes in the atmosphere of Earth causing all the air to funnel off into space.

One would hope such wacky conspiracy theorists would've died off around the same time as it was determined driving in a car more than 25 MPH would cause our bones to turn to jelly, but it would appear that they're still around.

Exactly.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a hole, gas comes out, but it doesn't do much to harm Earth.

Re:Exactly.

[by (1706743)]

Clouds actually do NOT contribute. Having a high albedo, they reflect a lot of incoming sunlight back into space.

Am I the only one who often misreads/mispronounces "albedo" as "libido"?

I guess that could send the wrong message to friends when you're sitting outside staring at the moon and commenting on its reflectivity...

Re:Exactly.

[riverat1]

Clouds develop when water vapor condenses in the atmosphere forming water droplets around condensation nuclei. But regarding their greenhouse effects clouds and water vapor are two different things with different absorption/reflection characteristics for radiant energy.

Answering the GP, during daylight clouds can reflect sunlight back into space providing a cooling effect but the albedo depends on things like the size of the cloud droplets, the density of the cloud, the angle of the light hitting it and probably a few other things. At night though they reflect radiant energy back toward the surface or absorb it providing a warming effect. And around the world near the day/night separation line the sunlight can actually be reflected from the bottom of the clouds down to the Earth. Overall the effects of clouds on global warming appears to be slightly positive.

Bad Article

[Stoutlimb]

Holes in the sun! Sun losing gas to space! "Probably time is finally taking a toll on the benevolent star, which has been toiling hard for millennia!"

I wouldn't exactly call this science journalism. No explanation why, what will happen, etc... The only link on the article is labeled "NASA", but points to the main page of this crappy website. To their credit they have a photo of the sun, but is from another solar space mission unrelated to the article.

Hey editors, how on earth did this awful link get onto the main page?

Re:Bad Article

[Stoutlimb]

Just an after thought... The article DID mention that this was reported on space.com, but they didn't provide a link. Here it is:

http://www.space.com/10825-sun-holes-space-photo-hinode.html

I had a look, it's way better. Maybe this should have been the link provided in the submission.

Re:Bad Article

[anlag]

Yes, went to post exactly the same thing. Not to bash the submission as such since it's nice to see people take an interest in my field of work, but surely it's not that much to ask to find the referenced article. Mind you, the space.com piece although better also doesn't go very much in depth of the subject. Then again one of the reasons for that is likely that it simply isn't a very big deal. The Sun is a very dynamic object, always has been and always will be. And that it spills stuff into space is hardly news, or cause for concern. They're still nice pictures though, from a great mission.

Re:Bad Article

[Stoutlimb]

Oh I totally agree, I just thought it was nice to post a link to the article they were reporting on, seeing that neither they nor the submitter bothered to do so.

In a nutshell, coronal holes are a large source of Solar Wind https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Solar_wind

Re:Probably been there for ages

[maxwell demon]

Actually, I cannot find that danger either in the linked article, not in the NASA article sustik linked to in a comment. The latter just says that we have to expect more auroras when the gas stream hits us "in a few days" (and that article was from Jan 11, so it probably has hit us quite some time ago, apparently without major damages).

And the concern is...?

[ThunderBird89]

The way I see it, unless one of those holes were pointed straight at us for an extended time, which is impossible due to difference in the orbital velocity of Earth and the rotational velocity of the Sun, we have nothing to worry about, and even then we'd only get a few blanked-out satellites.

Re:And the concern is...?

[RightwingNutjob]

For years man has yearned to destroy the sun. Now he has a reason: self-defense.

Don't panic

[vmxeo]

Don't freak out that there's now an opening in the corona. Freak out when a celestial lime slice gets wedged it.

Re:Your toast - which way?

[Stevecrox]

I really hate this urban legend, read the wikipedia article on the Mayan Calender.

Basically they had the Tzolk'in which provided a 260 day year (13 months of 20 days) which was used to plan ceremonies and events. Because that doesn't match up with the length of the year they developed the Haab which lasts 365 days this provided 18 months consisting of 20 days, with 5 "nameless" days.

However neither of these calenders providing a way of keeping track of the year, so the mayans worked out the year by using the Tzolk'in and Haab calenders, since those dates reset every 52 years the Mayans called that a Calender Round.

The Long Count was created so dates which occurred outside of the 52 year cycle could be stated, the end of the world myth exists because 1 Bakturn consists of 144,000 days. On December 21st 2012 this bakturn cycle ends, that doesn't mean the world will end to the Mayans the end of such a cycle is a time of celebration.

In short the Mayan calender system is a giant overly complicated mess.

Non-story, clueless writer

[Platinum Dragon]

Visit spaceweather.com daily for a month or two, and keep an eye on the various Sun images on the left side. One is used to point out coronal holes, and you'll quickly realize how common they are. This may be related to the approaching solar maximum, though don't quote me on that.

I'm much more concerned about flare and mass ejection frequency. With all the satellites and poorly-shielded electrical circuits we rely upon, one or two wicked ejections aimed at Earth could turn a lot of gear into expensive junk.

Re:Your toast - which way?

[maxwell demon]

The thing is, something *does* happen at the end of the 31st of December – the earth ends it's current revolution around the sun.

So what is so special about the point of the orbit it happens to reach at that time? It's not even the perihel (closest point to the sun), which comes a few days later, nor the winter solstice (when the tilt of the earth's axis aligns with the radial vector of the orbit), which is shortly before Christmas. There's absolutely nothing remarkable about the point in orbit at 31st of December.