A planet – sized spot on the Sun sped up its growth within a few days and could direct an assault of solar energy on Earth .
NASA has detected a rapidly growing planet-sized sunspot pointing directly at Earth . The US space agency baptized this phenomenon with the name of AR3085 and discovered that it could launch an energy assault in the direction of our planet in the following days.
In the report published on its official website, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration indicated that, a few days ago, the sunspot was quite small. However, just 48 hours after its discovery, the size of this phenomenon multiplied 10 times to finally become two sunspots almost the diameter of the Earth each.
Sunspot AR3085 and its rapid growth
The SpaceWeather portal shared a GIF file where you can better appreciate the rapid evolution of sunspot AR3085 during the two days that passed after its discovery. According to what NASA explains , sunspots are large regions with strong magnetic fields that form on the surface of the Sun and their apparent darkness is due to the fact that they are colder than their surroundings.
These phenomena are generated in places where the bands of the Sun ‘s magnetic field become entangled and tense. This causes the flow of hot gas to be inhibited from the interior of the star and generates colder and darker regions of the solar surface. Magnetic energy builds up and often produces solar flares. The more of these zones appear on the Sun at any given time, the more likely the energy will be released.
Is Earth in danger from sunspot?
In the original Live Science report , it is mentioned that if sunspots continue to grow so fast in the coming days, they will produce extremely intense flashes that would hurtle towards our planet. The effect of this energy release will endanger the satellites and communication systems of the world’s space agencies. However, they do not represent a real danger for now.
The activity of the Sun has changed remarkably in recent years and has generated X-class eruptions that have swarmed the Earth since last spring of 2022. The number of these phenomena will most likely increase over time as we We are approaching the next solar maximum
