{"id":18478,"date":"2015-10-16T09:46:57","date_gmt":"2015-10-16T16:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/giant-hole-in-sun-is-50-earths-wide"},"modified":"2017-04-24T23:59:55","modified_gmt":"2017-04-25T06:59:55","slug":"giant-hole-in-sun-is-50-earths-wide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/giant-hole-in-sun-is-50-earths-wide","title":{"rendered":"Giant \u2018Hole\u2019 in Sun Is 50 Earths Wide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\\'blog-photo\\' href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/giant-hole-in-sun-is-50-earths-wide.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I know that solar flares and CME\u2019s aren\u2019t an existential threat to humanity (as long as we\u2019ve got our geomagnetic shield in place, of course), but having seen the movie Knowing I can\u2019t help but feel at least a small and totally irrational bit terrified. And not by Nicolas Cage\u2019s hair, either! (although it does come in a close second <span class=\"wp-smiley emoji emoji-wink\" title=\";-)\">wink<\/span> ) <\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>The sun has sprung a leak: A hole in the topmost layer of the sun and its magnetic field, the size of 50 Earths, is letting loose an ultrafast solar wind that has kicked off several nights of auroras down on Earth.<\/p>\n<p>A new image, from NASA\u2019s orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory, reveals the enormous hole as it was Oct. 10, taken at an ultraviolet wavelength unseen by the human eye. To an ordinary observer, the gaping hole would be invisible, though you should <strong>NEVER <\/strong>stare at the sun because serious eye damage can result.<\/p>\n<p>The gap in the sun\u2019s magnetic field lets out a stream of particles traveling at up to 500 miles (800 kilometers) per second, kindling a days-long geomagnetic storm upon hitting Earth. [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.space.com\/28799-biggest-solar-flares-2015-sun-photos.html\">Biggest Solar Storms of 2015 in Photos<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/giant-hole-sun-50-earths-wide-112635038.html\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I know that solar flares and CME\u2019s aren\u2019t an existential threat to humanity (as long as we\u2019ve got our geomagnetic shield in place, of course), but having seen the movie Knowing I can\u2019t help but feel at least a small and totally irrational bit terrified. And not by Nicolas Cage\u2019s hair, either! (although it does [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":362,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/362"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18478"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51378,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18478\/revisions\/51378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}