Huge ‘hole in the sun’ is causing spectacular northern lights this week

A vast black ‘hole’ in the sun is blasting our planet with ‘solar wind’ - particles hitting our atmosphere at around 400mph.

The ‘coronal hole’ - the largest in some time, according to Accuweather experts - has caused spectacular northern lights across several countries.

Accuweather says, ‘Solar wind continues to stream towards Earth at twice the normal rate. This wind, made of particles from the sun, is colliding with the Earth’s magnetic field traveling at over 400 miles per second!

‘This solar wind is being pushed by a gigantic coronal hole. This hole is so large, the wind should continue to affect the Earth through tomorrow. This should result in auroras for another two nights.

But while the image captured by NASA’s NASA’s sun-observing Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) satellite looks alarming, it’s nothing to be afraid of.

Coronal holes look terrifying in the images captured by NASA’s sun-observing Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) satellite - but they’re perfectly safe, and normal.

NASA says, ‘Coronal holes are low-density regions of the sun’s atmosphere, known as the corona. Because they contain little solar material, they have lower temperatures and thus appear much darker than their surroundings.

‘Coronal holes are visible in certain types of extreme ultraviolet light, which is typically invisible to our eyes, but is colorized here in purple for easy viewing.

‘Coronal holes are the source of a high-speed wind of solar particles that streams off the sun some three times faster than the slower wind elsewhere.’