The giant hole at the Sun's Pole

SOHO is a spacecraft built by a 
European consortium and launched in 
1995 to study the Sun. (Picture from: 
http://www.space-exploratorium.com/)

The European Space Agency's Solar and Heliosphenc Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft found a giant hole in the solar atmosphere. Dark area known as coronal hole covers almost a quarter of the sun, and pull out material and gases into space.

The hole was visible at the Sun's north pole at July 18 and 13, 2013. In a video released on July 30, 2013, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) says the coronal holes are darker, cooler regions of the sun's atmosphere, or corona, containing little solar material. In an empty area, the sun's magnetic field stripped it out into the solar storm.

Coronal hole and its magnetic field.
(Picture from: http://www.windows2universe.org/)

"While it’s unclear what causes coronal holes, they correlate to areas on the sun where magnetic fields soar up and away, failing to loop back down to the surface, as they do elsewhere," NASA's Karen Fox at the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., explained in an image description.

Fox said corona hole affecting weather in space due to send solar particles approximately three times faster than any other area on the sun's atmosphere. Changes in frequency of occurrence of coronal holes could be considered in accordance with the cycle of solar activity. This year, the sun reaches its peak activity in 11 years, known as the solar maximum phase. Around this time of peak solar magnetic field reverses.

Giant Coronal Hole takes over huge portion of the Sun. (Picture from: http://news.softpedia.com/)

"The number of coronal holes typically decreases with changes in the magnetic field," said Fox. After the reversal of the magnetic field, coronal holes will rise again near the poles as the sun approached the minimum activity, coronal holes close to the equator. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | HUFFINGTONPOST | MAHARDIKA SATRIA HADI | KORAN TEMPO 4306]

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