One of the largest coronal holes of the year has formed on the Sun. The stream of fast solar wind from it is expected to reach Earth on the night of 6–7 November and may cause several days of magnetic disturbances, the Laboratory of Solar Astronomy of the Space Research Institute and the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences reported.
The coronal hole measures about a million kilometres. According to scientists' forecasts, Earth will remain in the solar wind stream for at least five days, until roughly the middle of next week.
For now, the most noticeable magnetic storms are provisionally expected on the night of 7 November. Their further intensity will depend on the actual characteristics of the plasma stream. Earth's magnetic field is not expected to stabilise fully until 13–14 November.
On 5 November, at 23:33 Ashgabat time, an M3.6-class flare occurred on the Sun, the most powerful in almost four weeks. It originated in sunspot group No. 4566, which belongs to the highest class of magnetic complexity, Beta-Gamma-Delta.
Scientists note that the flare region is located relatively close to the Earth-facing direction, so the ejected plasma could potentially reach the planet. However, no signs of such an ejection have been detected so far.
