Sunspots
Related Category: Astronomy: General
dark, usually irregularly shaped spots on the sun's surface that are actually solar magnetic storms. The Chinese recorded dark features on the sun seen with the naked eye in 28 B.C.
Sunspots
The sunspot group seen on 22 Sept 2000, the largest for 9 years, covered about 1/500th of the solar surface, ...
sunspots
Home ... Science and Technology Astronomy and Space Exploration Astronomy: General ...
Essential reading Compare
side-by-side World Encyclopedia The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition ...
Sunspots:
Sunspots are a vortex of gas on the surface of the Sun associated with strong local magnetic activity. Spots look dark only by contrast with the surrounding photosphere, which is several thousand degrees hotter.
Individual sunspots only last for one to two weeks, but the number of sunspots follows an 11 year cycle. The current sunspot cycle will peak in the middle of 2000. Sunspots are visible from Earth.
Just as our Sun has sunspots, new research shows that so too does Betelgeuse, although on a much larger scale - these two giant spots have diameters on the order of the size equivalent of the Earth-to-Sun distance, some 150,000,000 kilometres.
When Sunspots Collide
Featured on
A powerful solar flare (the bright area in the bottom half of this image) erupted when two sunspots collided in December.
Sun and Sunspots Index Page Learn More about Our Sun and Sunspots and Their Effects on Earth
Read more Space Today Online stories about the Solar System
Star: ...
Sunspots are appropriately named. They appear as spots on the disk of the Sun. A sunspot will have a very dark central region known as the umbra. It is often surrounded by a less dark halo known as the penumbra.
Sunspots and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations Maurice Cottrell
There appears to be a correlation between the rise and fall of civilizations with the rise and fall of radiation from the sun.
You can learn more about sunspots on our , under "The Sun":
J.K. Cannizzo
(for "Ask a High-Energy Astronomer") ...
Sunspots
Sunspots appear as dark spots on the surface of the Sun. Temperatures in the dark centers of sunspots drop to about 3700 K (compared to 5700 K for the surrounding photosphere).
SUNSPOTS
Figure 16.15 is an optical photograph of the entire Sun, showing numerous dark blemishes on the surface.
SUNSPOTS
A wonderful rhythm in the ebb and flow of sunspot activity dominates the atmosphere of the Sun and influences life on Earth as well.
Sunspots
Around 1610, soon after the telescope first became available, three independent observers--Galileo, Galilei, Johann Fabricius and Christopher Scheiner--used it to observe dark spots on the face of the Sun.
sunspots n.
1. Notional cause of an odd error. "Why did the program suddenly turn the screen blue?" "Sunspots, I guess." 2.
Sunspots These are seen as dark spots in the photosphere that have extremely high magnetic fields. They usually show up in groups of two sets and have a lower temperature than their surroundings. This gives them a darkened appearance.
Sunspots.
The American astronomer George E. Hale discovered in 1908 that sunspots contain strong magnetic fields. A typical sunspot has a magnetic-field strength of 2500 gauss.
Sunspots
Along with contemporaries such as Thomas Harriot, David Frabicius and Christoph Scheiner, Galileo observed dark regions that appeared to move across the surface of the Sun.
Sunspots and Other Solar Activities
Prominences (as shown in the photo below) are eruptions of the gas trapped in the magnetic fields in the chromosphere. Usually, they are about a few times the size of the Earth.
Sunspots
Graph showing proxies of solar activity, including changes in sunspot number and cosmogenic isotope production.
Sunspots and the sunspot cycle
When observing the Sun with appropriate filtration, the most immediately visible features are usually its sunspots, ...
sunspots
Cooler (and thus darker) regions on the sun where the magnetic field loops up out of the solar surface.
SXG
The Spectrum X-Gamma mission ...
Sunspots and related acne
Various phenomena observed on the Sun can extend through all of the layers of the atmosphere, though it may be more apparent in some layers more so than others.
Making Sunspots
Figure 1. Example of work bench
1. Tell students they will recreate the magnetic structures of sunspots using magnets and iron filings. They will visualize a simple, bipolar magnetic field.
Sunspots are regions where the solar magnetic field is very strong. In visible light, sunspots appear darker than their surroundings because they are a few thousand degrees cooler than their surroundings.
Sunspots are a feature of the that have been observed since ancient times (including by ). When viewed through a telescope, sunspots have a dark central region known as the umbra, surrounded by a somewhat lighter region called the penumbra.
Sunspots are cooler areas of the sun's photosphere. They also have very strong magnetic fields, up to 10,000 times that of Earth's - up to 3000 times that of the rest of the sun, ...
Sunspots for 4 August 2002 when there were eight groups visible. The average Zurich sunspot number for this day was 95 (8 groups + 15 distinct spots).
Credit: SOHO: The Sun Now/NASA.
sunspots and faculae in the photosphere
plages, fibrils, and filaments in the chromosphere
coronal condensations in the corona.
Solar flares are also associated with active regions.
Sunspots Temporary magnetic disturbances in the photosphere. They appear dark because temperatures are considerably lower than in surrounding areas.
More about sunspots...
Sunspots are regions of strong magnetic fields. This affects the spectral lines in the sunspot spectra. Each absorption lines will split up into multiple components.
sunspots
Dark patches on the Sun, 1500°C cooler than its average surface temperature. Cause is unknown
supernova ...
Sunspots
A sunspot is a region on the Sun's photosphere that is cooler and darker than the surrounding material. Sunspots often appear in pairs or groups with specific magnetic polarities that indicate electromagnetic origins.
Supermassive Black Hole ...
Sunspots are cool, dark patches on the surface. They are caused by disturbances in the sun's magnetic field which make the sunspot about 2700°F (1500°C) cooler than the surrounding area.
SUNSPOTS
Sunspots are cool, dark patches on the Sun's surface. They are caused by disturbances in the sun's magnetic field which make the sunspot about 2700°F (1500°C) cooler than the surrounding area.
see Sunspots [H76]
F Star
A star of spectral type F with a surface temperature of about 60O0-7500 K, in which lines of hydrogen and Ca II are of about equal strength. Metal lines also become noticeable. Examples are Canopus, Procyon. [H76] ...
Are any sunspots on the sun today? Visit this site to find out! Watch videos to learn more about the sun and how it affects Earth.
Tonight's Sky: Highlights of the March Sky → ...
What are sunspots and why do they appear dark?
Sunspots are temporary areas on the surface of the Sun that are cooler than the surrounding areas.
Planet-sized sunspots are the
relatively cooler but surprisingly
shallow tops of swirling hurricanes
of electrified gas (more from NASA
and Astronomy Picture of the Day).
But what causes sunspots? It turns out that it has to due with the magnetic field of the Sun. The Sun rotates faster at the equator than it does at the poles This is known as differential rotation.
faculae (NASA Thesaurus / NASA SP-7, 1965) Large patches of bright material forming a veined network in the vicinity of sunspots. They appear to be more permanent than sunspots and are probably due to elevated clouds of luminous gas.
A localized, transient volume of the solar atmosphere in which PLAGEs, SUNSPOTS, FACULAe, FLAREs, etc. may be observed. ACTIVE SURGE REGION (ASR). An ACTIVE REGION that exhibits a group or series of spike-like surges that rise above the limb.
Marius was also the first to observe the Andromeda Nebula with a telescope and one of the first to observe sunspots. (more) mensa mesa, flat-topped elevation.
In visible light they exhibit sunspots. active satellite (NASA Thesaurus / NASA SP-7, 1965) A satellite which transmits a signal, in contrast to passive satellite .
From studies of the apparent motions of sunspots across the solar disk, we see that the Sun rotates "differentially.
Sunspots
Galileo observed the Sun through his telescope and saw that the Sun had dark patches on it that we now call sunspots (he eventually went blind, perhaps from damage suffered by looking at the Sun with his telescope).
Galileo was one of the first Europeans to observe sunspots. He also reinterpreted a sunspot observation from the time of Charlemagne, which formerly had been attributed (impossibly) to a transit of Mercury.
Another sort of mottling that one can see in the Sun are the sunspots. Sunspots appear dark because they are at a much lower temperature than the surrounding photosphere, specifically about 1500K cooler.
SUNSPOT CYCLE - Eleven-year periodicity in the number of sunspots observed on the Sun. Sunspot maxima are associated with times of high solar activity (many flares and solar storms).
We know this by observing another unusual feature of the Sun, its sunspots. Sunspots are dark areas on the Sun's surface. They are believed to be storms with magnetic activity.
Galileo made the first European observations of sunspots, although there is evidence that Chinese astronomers had done so before him.
(a) Process in the Sun (and possibly other stars) perhaps caused by Solar rotation, which produces the immensely powerful electrical and magnetic fields associated with sunspots. [A84]
(b) The transfer of energy by flow of a liquid or gas.
Sunspots are somewhat cooler places seen on the photosphere (the Sun's bright surface) where very intense magnetic lines of force break through.
"When I was in eighth grade, my friend asked me to observe sunspots with him. Soon after I got a telescope and have loved star gazing ever since. In 1971, I observed Mars and the M13 star cluster with a 20cm reflecting telescope.
Resolved the stars in the Milky Way, discovered sunspots and measured the Sun’s rotation, observed Venus phases, discovered four moons of Jupiter, observed lunar features and measured lunar wobble, ...
QUIET PERIOD - Few, if any sunspots are seen, the corona is difficult to observe, and our Sun looks black when viewed with an X-ray telescope because few X-rays are being produced. Right now, our Sun is in a relatively quiet period.
The pattern of sunspots that show a time distribution concentrated in 35 degree wide belts on each side of the solar equator.
A graph showing the latitude of sunspots versus time, first plotted by W.W. Maunder in 1904.
Maunder Minimum
A period of less numerous sunspots and other solar activity from 1645-1715.
Maunder butterfly diagram: A graph showing the latitude of sunspots versus time; first plotted by W. W. Maunder in 1904.
Maunder minimum: A period of less numerous sunspots and other solar activity from 1645 to 1715.
 See also: Sunspot, Sun, Solar, Earth, Light
|
