• Home
  • Mail
  • Flickr
  • Tumblr
  • News
  • Sports
  • Finance
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Answers
  • Groups
  • More
Yahoo
    • Skip to Navigation
    • Skip to Main Content
    • Skip to Related Content

    NASA Spots Square-Shaped 'Hole' in the Sun (Video)

    by Tariq Malik, Managing Editor
    ,
    SPACE.com•May 12, 2014
    NASA Spots Square-Shaped 'Hole' in the Sun (Video)

    A NASA spacecraft has made a surprising find on the surface of the sun: a square-shaped "hole" in the star's outer atmosphere.

    The dark square on the sun, known as a "coronal hole," is an area where the solar wind is streaming out of the sun at superfast speeds. NASA captured a video of the sun's square-shaped coronal hole between Monday and Wednesday (May 5-7) using the powerful Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

    The coronal hole appears dark in the NASA view because there is less material emitting light in the ultraviolet range of the spectrum used to make the video, according to a NASA video description. [Biggest Solar Storms of 2014 (Photos)]

    "Inside the coronal hole you can see bright loops where the hot plasma outlines little pieces of the solar magnetic field sticking above the surface," SDO officials wrote in the video description. "Because it is positioned so far south on the sun, there is less chance that the solar wind stream will impact us here on Earth."

    NASA's sun-watching Solar Dynamics Observatory is just one of a fleet of spacecraft keeping a close watch on the weather on Earth's parent star. In 2013, the sun experienced its peak activity of its 11-year solar weather cycle.

    Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

    • 'Square' Hole In Sun Blows High-Speed Solar Wind | Video
    • The Sun's Wrath: Worst Solar Storms in History
    • Anatomy of Sun Storms & Solar Flares (Infographic)
    • Solar Quiz: How Well Do You Know Our Sun?

    Copyright 2014 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.