The Sun smiles at NASA’s space telescope

The so-called coronal holes were discovered when the x-ray telescopes of the Skylab mission were sent beyond the Earth’s atmosphere to observe our star.

These holes are related to the lines of the solar magnetic field: during the period of least activity of the Sun, the holes are mainly found in the polar regions, while when the Sun is more active, many spots appear scattered over the entire surface. The current solar cycle is showing unusually high activity, so much so that the peak, initially forecasted for 2025, will likely arrive a year earlier.

An example of this activity are the coronal holes now photographed by the Sdo space telescope, launched in 2010 and which orbits about 36 thousand kilometers from the Earth.