NASA Captures Spectacular Image of Massive Coronal Hole in Sun (Photo)

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured a spectacular image of the sun on Tuesday, June 18. The new image reveals a massive coronal hole spread over almost the entire left quadrant of the sun. The area of cooler, less dense material can easily be seen in the picture.

So what exactly is a coronal hole? The phenomenon is actually an area of the sun's atmosphere, the corona, where the magnetic field opens up and material quickly flows outward, according to NASA. This results in a cooler and less dense atmosphere than the surrounding areas, which results in an image that clearly reveals the difference.

Coronal holes were first discovered by NASA's Skylab in the early 1970s. Now, scientists know that their size and number varies depending on where the sun is in its solar cycle. Since the sun is currently reaching its 11-year solar peak, these coronal holes are moving closer and closer to the sun's poles. The solar cycle is scheduled to reach its full force in late 2013 to early 2014, which means that the sun's activity is ramping up.

In fact, the sun has recently been belching out X-class solar flares. In May, our sun slung four of these flares in under 48 hours. It's likely that this sort of activity will continue to increase and may include coronal mass ejections that could impact Earth.

You can see the coronal hole in the image as the blue section in the top left part of the image of the sun. This particular hole is massive; it's at least 40,000 miles across, which is more than 50 Earths side by side. It's currently spewing out fast solar wind, probably travelling at about 400 to 500 miles per second. That's roughly twice the speed of the normal solar wind, which is solar material streaming off of the sun in every direction to fill the solar system.

As we near the peak of the 11-year cycle and as NASA continues to watch the sun for any activity, we're likely to see a lot more of these fantastic images in the near future.