NASA has spotted a HUGE hole in the Sun – and it’s GROWING

NASA has spotted a gigantic and ominous hole in the surface of the Sun which appears to be getting bigger.

The animation below shows the shocking extent of the gulf in our parent star, using a number of images snapped by  NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft.

Luckily, although it looks pretty grim, the massive dark patch is nothing to worry about. It's called a coronal hole and is just a particularly large version of a phenonenon which occurs frequently on the surface of the Sun.

"Coronal holes are low-density regions of the sun’s atmosphere, known as the corona," NASA wrote.

"Because they contain little solar material, they have lower temperatures and thus appear much darker than their surroundings.

The only possible negative effect of the holes lies in the fact they emit a stream of highly charged particles called the solar wind.

This can cause problems for communications satellites, which are packed full of sensitive electronics.

"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," NASA continued.