NASA spots huge hole near SUN’S NORTH POLE. Size of 50 Earths. LOL.

Here is some hump-day perspective. NASA has spotted a rip-roaring coronal hole on the Earth. This son of a bitch is large. We’re talking to the tune of 50 Earth’s placed side by side. Dios mio.

NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has captured images of an unusually large coronal hole on the surface of the Sun. At one point, it was so large that it covered nearly a quarter of the Sun’s visible disk — a distance equivalent to 50 Earths placed side-by-side.

As dramatic as this sounds, coronal holes are nothing to worry about. The phenomenon happens every 11 years as the solar cycle comes to an end and the Sun attains its solar maximum — a regularly occurring event in which the magnetic fields on the Sun reverse and new coronal holes appear near the poles with the opposite magnetic alignment.

[io9]