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Sunspot Days
"Sunspots, those fleeting shadows on the sun's face, remind us that even stars are not untouched by change."
This tartan burns with the colours of this weekend's solar activity, marked by multiple sunspots, significant solar flares, and coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which have intensified auroral displays globally at unusual latitudes! A sunspot is a temporary phenomenon on the Sun's photosphere that appears as a dark spot compared to surrounding areas. These spots are cooler than the rest of the Sun's surface and are caused by intense magnetic activity, which inhibits convection by reducing the energy transported from the Sun's interior to its surface. Sunspots can be very large, often several times the size of Earth! The solar storms have created conditions for a spectacular auroral show and so far have not significantly adversely affect our electrical infrastructure! Enjoy the show for now! 🖤 💛 🤎 🧡 🌞 🔥 🔥
This tartan, designed by Carol A.L. Martin was created in celebration of recently-emerging sunspots.
Sunspots are areas on the sun where the magnetic field is about 2,500 times stronger than Earth's, much higher than anywhere else on the Sun. Because of the strong magnetic field, the magnetic pressure increases while the surrounding atmospheric pressure decreases. This in turn lowers the temperature relative to its surroundings because the concentrated magnetic field inhibits the flow of hot, new gas from the Sun's interior to the surface. This area of lower temperature results in sunspots.
Sunspots tend to occur in pairs that have magnetic fields pointing in opposite directions. A typical spot consists of a dark region called the umbra, surrounded by a lighter region known as the penumbra. The surrounding surface of the Sun (the photosphere) is about 10,000 degrees F while the umbra is about 6,300 degrees F.
Sunspots tend to appear in cycles of 11 years. One period of history, The Maunder Minimum (1645-1715), also known as the "prolonged sunspot minimum", was a period during which sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers.
Sunspots sometimes erupt into powerful solar storms that shoot streams of charged particles into space, occasionally in the direction of Earth. Some powerful solar storms can bombard Earth's magnetic field and disrupt power grids or knock out satellites in orbit around the planet.
As the sun reaches the end of a cycle, new sunspots appear near the equator, and a new cycle begins with the production of sunspots at higher latitudes on the surface of the sun.
For more about Sunspots, click the sun's surface.