Speculations that giant cracks formed on the surface of the Sun have been dismissed by a Russian researcher.
What laymen dub “cracks” are in fact luminous clouds, explained Professor Boris Filippov, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Chief Researcher at the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
A number of reports appeared earlier in November, suggesting that a huge fissure, or a "canyon of fire" had been formed on the solar surface, approximately 6,200 miles (10,000km) wide, and more than seven times as long as our planet Earth.
“First, there are no cracks in the Sun… this will not cause the orb to fall apart,” the researcher told Russian media.
“What journalists usually like to call ‘cracks’ - and it should be noted that in images of the Sun in some spectrums, dark lines are, in fact, visible - are most often protuberances that are visible against the background of the solar disk,” the scientist said.
Filippov explained that when observed at the edge of the star located at the heart of our solar system, these luminous clouds are called "prominences".
“If the phenomenon is not bright, but dark, and is observed on the surface of the sun, then it is called a solar filament. These filaments are clumps of plasma, that sometimes lose solar equilibrium, rising quickly outward, explode, and turn into an ejection, moving through interplanetary space,” the scientist said.
When they collide with the Earth's magnetic field, coronal mass ejections cause strong magnetic storms.
Filippov warned that our planet could soon be in for a magnetic storm caused by the latest solar flare. Though he allayed any fears of ensuing earthquakes or floods on Earth, Filippov underscored that geomagnetic disturbances caused by geomagnetic storms have been known to affect the power grid, trigger radio blackouts around the world, and mobile-phone outages, as well as affect satellites, and even some people’s health.
Incidentally, earlier it was reported that increased occurrence of "cannibal" coronal mass ejections (CMEs) suggested the solar maximum, the peak of the sun's approximately 11-year solar cycle, was approaching, set to bring with it intensified solar activity, resulting in more sunspots and solar flares.