A newly discovered coronal hole on the Sun, could cause minor geomagnetic disturbances on our planet, write press service of the Solar Astronomy Laboratory of the Institute of Space Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences on the Telegram channel.
Scientists found that the Sun has entered a period of calm that lasts two more weeks.
According to them, in mid-October, the star enters a special cycle – two weeks of hyperactivity followed by two weeks of silence. They added that this pattern continues to hold for now.
“The extremely gloomy picture of a solar winter in the coming days will most likely be somewhat tempered by a rather large coronal hole of a very peculiar shape that has formed in the solar disk,” the press service explains.
Astronomers noticed that last week this strange two-winged structure “grazed” the Earth with its first, shorter wing, causing short magnetic storms that peaked on the night of December 12-13.
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In their view, on Wednesday, December 17, a stream of angry solar wind will reach Earth from the second, more extended wing. They clarified that there is a high probability that this phenomenon will not lead to a strong magnetic storm.
