Coronal holes are cooler, darker regions in the Sun’s upper atmosphere, the corona, where the solar wind is blasted into space at high speed. A new study has found that the magnetic properties of these holes can be used to predict the strength of geomagnetic storms hitting Earth.

Geomagnetic storms occur when flares occur. solar windStreams of magnetized particles from the corona interact with the corona. earth’s magnetic field and penetrate atmosphere of the planet. The result is some geomagnetic storms coronal mass ejection (CMEs), usually caused by strong coronal plasma eruptions sunspots.

Sunspots, like coronal holes, are darker and cooler than the rest of the solar disk, but they form in the lower layer. solar atmosphere, photosphere. Unlike coronal holes, sunspots are regions where the Sun’s magnetic field is extremely strong and the magnetic lines are bent. At one point, the entangled magnetic lines explode, emitting a flash of light in the form. sun burst and CME. Coronal holes, by contrast, have magnetic lines that are open rather than looped back. Sunallows the solar wind to flow freely into space.

A new study has found that solar wind emanating from coronal holes maintains its magnetic polarity 80% of the time during its journey through space. Knowing this polarity is key to predicting whether and how much a solar wind burst will destabilize Earth’s magnetosphere.

If Earth’s magnetic fields and solar wind fields meet at the same poles, they repel each other and have little effect on the planet. However, if these fields meet at their opposite poles, they coalesce and allow charged particles from the solar wind to penetrate deep into Earth’s atmosphere. When these particles of the solar wind interact with the air around the planet, they result in a beautiful image. polar lightsspreads around the poles.

However, these magnetic interactions also have many undesirable side effects. In extreme cases, they can lead to power cut On Earth, it damages and even causes satellites in orbit fall out of orbit.

Now cosmic forecasters have to wait for solar wind to reach NASA’s satellite SOHOTo learn the magnetic properties of the solar wind. SOHO orbits the Sun in synchrony with the so-called Earth. Lagrangian points 1 (L1) is 900,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth to the Sun. A solar wind burst takes several days to reach SOHO. But it will only take a few hours to reach Earth.

A new estimation method developed by a team of researchers from the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Russia, the University of Graz in Austria, the Leibniz Institute of Astrophysics in Germany and the University of Zagreb in Croatia can increase the alert time from hours. up to days for the type of solar wind bursts from coronal holes.

“We showed that the magnetic field from the coronal hole from the Sun to Earth is preserved more than 80% of the time,” Skolkovo science graduate and lead author of the study, Simona Nitti, said in an email. “This opens the possibility of using the magnetic field from solar observations instead of the L1 field.”

A coronal hole can cause a lot of trouble. As the sun rotates, the old coronal hole may reappear after 27 days. Some coronal holes in the past managed to survive for up to six months, ejecting the solar wind to Earth with each pass through the Sun’s visible disk.