A massive hole has appeared on the sun, and that means a lot for us

As we recently reported, scientists have spotted an utterly massive hole on the surface of the sun that could swallow up 50 Earths all at once — but what will it do to our Earth over the coming weeks?

The hole is a huge gash in the topmost layer of the sun, also called the “corona,” and it has made a hole in the magnetic field that is allow supercharged particles to escape, fleeing the sun at hundreds of miles per second.

Some of these particles head toward Earth, where they cause havoc in the form of geomagnetic storms. And this hole isn’t going anyway, at least for a while. It’s migrating slowly over the surface of the sun, continuing to throw out large volumes of particles.

That means a few things for Earth. For one thing, these coronal mass ejections, or solar winds, are going to be interfering with radios and potentially knocking out satellites.

Then there’s the fun side of these geomagnetic storms: the Northern Lights, or aurora borealis, which are some of the most spectacular in years due to the fierceness of these storms. The particles from the sun collide with our atmosphere and magnetic field, lighting up at the poles and creating the famous shimmering lights. They concentrate around the poles which is why usually only extreme northern areas can view them — although this geomagnetic storm has been so powerful, scientists were originally predicting it could be seen as far south as Pennsylvania.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published a description of geomagnetic storms which can be found here.