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Sunspots are
phenomena A phenomenon ( : phenomena) is an observable event. The term came into its modern philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which ''cannot'' be directly observed. Kant was heavily influenced by Gottfried W ...
on the Sun's
photosphere The photosphere is a star's outer shell from which light is radiated. The term itself is derived from Ancient Greek roots, φῶς, φωτός/''phos, photos'' meaning "light" and σφαῖρα/''sphaira'' meaning "sphere", in reference to it ...
that appear as temporary spots that are darker than the surrounding areas. They are regions of reduced surface temperature caused by concentrations of
magnetic flux In physics, specifically electromagnetism, the magnetic flux through a surface is the surface integral of the normal component of the magnetic field B over that surface. It is usually denoted or . The SI unit of magnetic flux is the weber ...
that inhibit convection. Sunspots appear within active regions, usually in pairs of opposite magnetic polarity. Their number varies according to the approximately 11-year solar cycle. Individual sunspots or groups of sunspots may last anywhere from a few days to a few months, but eventually decay. Sunspots expand and contract as they move across the surface of the Sun, with diameters ranging from to . Larger sunspots can be visible from Earth without the aid of a telescope. They may travel at relative speeds, or
proper motion Proper motion is the astrometric measure of the observed changes in the apparent places of stars or other celestial objects in the sky, as seen from the center of mass of the Solar System, compared to the abstract background of the more dista ...
s, of a few hundred meters per second when they first emerge. Indicating intense magnetic activity, sunspots accompany other active region phenomena such as coronal loops, prominences, and reconnection events. Most solar flares and coronal mass ejections originate in these magnetically active regions around visible sunspot groupings. Similar phenomena indirectly observed on
star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...
s other than the Sun are commonly called starspots, and both light and dark spots have been measured.


History

The earliest record of sunspots is found in the Chinese ''
I Ching The ''I Ching'' or ''Yi Jing'' (, ), usually translated ''Book of Changes'' or ''Classic of Changes'', is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. Originally a divination manual in the Western Zho ...
'', completed before 800 BC. The text describes that a ''dou'' and ''mei'' were observed in the sun, where both words refer to a small obscuration. The earliest record of a deliberate sunspot observation also comes from China, and dates to 364 BC, based on comments by astronomer Gan De (甘德) in a
star catalogue A star catalogue is an astronomical catalogue that lists stars. In astronomy, many stars are referred to simply by catalogue numbers. There are a great many different star catalogues which have been produced for different purposes over the years, ...
. By 28 BC, Chinese astronomers were regularly recording sunspot observations in official imperial records. The first clear mention of a sunspot in
Western literature Western literature, also known as European literature, is the literature written in the context of Western culture in the languages of Europe, as well as several geographically or historically related languages such as Basque and Hungarian, an ...
is circa 300 BC, by
ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
scholar Theophrastus, student of
Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institutio ...
and
Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical Greece, Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatet ...
and successor to the latter. The first drawings of sunspots were made by English monk John of Worcester in December 1128. Sunspots were first observed telescopically in December 1610 by English astronomer Thomas Harriot. His observations were recorded in his notebooks and were followed in March 1611 by observations and reports by Frisian astronomers Johannes and David Fabricius. After Johannes Fabricius' death at the age of 29, his reports remained obscure and were eclipsed by the independent discoveries of and publications about sunspots by Christoph Scheiner and
Galileo Galilei Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He w ...
. Galileo likely began telescopic sunspot observations around the same time as Harriot; however, Galileo's records did not start until 1612. In the early 19th Century, William Herschel was one of the first to equate sunspots with heating and cooling on Earth and believed that certain features of sunspots would indicate increased heating on Earth. During his recognition of solar behavior and hypothesized solar structure, he inadvertently picked up the relative absence of sunspots from July 1795 to January 1800 and was perhaps the first to construct a past record of observed or missing sunspots. From this he found that the absence of sunspots coincided with high wheat prices in England. The president of the
Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, r ...
commented that the upward trend in wheat prices was due to
monetary inflation Monetary inflation is a sustained increase in the money supply of a country (or currency area). Depending on many factors, especially public expectations, the fundamental state and development of the economy, and the monetary transmission mechan ...
. Years later scientists such as Richard Carrington in 1865 and John Henry Poynting in 1884 tried and failed to find a connection between wheat prices and sunspots, and modern analysis finds that there is no statistically significant correlation between wheat prices and sunspot numbers.


Physics


Morphology

Sunspots have two main structures: a central umbra and a surrounding
penumbra The umbra, penumbra and antumbra are three distinct parts of a shadow, created by any light source after impinging on an opaque object. Assuming no diffraction, for a collimated beam (such as a point source) of light, only the umbra is cast. Th ...
. The umbra is the darkest region of a sunspot and is where the magnetic field is strongest and approximately vertical, or normal, to the Sun's surface, or
photosphere The photosphere is a star's outer shell from which light is radiated. The term itself is derived from Ancient Greek roots, φῶς, φωτός/''phos, photos'' meaning "light" and σφαῖρα/''sphaira'' meaning "sphere", in reference to it ...
. The umbra may be surrounded completely or only partially by a brighter region known as the penumbra. The penumbra is composed of radially elongated structures known as penumbral filaments and has a more inclined magnetic field than the umbra. Within sunspot groups, multiple umbrae may be surrounded by a single, continuous penumbra. The temperature of the umbra is roughly 3000–4500 K, in contrast to the surrounding material at about 5780 K, leaving sunspots clearly visible as dark spots. This is because the
luminance Luminance is a photometric measure of the luminous intensity per unit area of light travelling in a given direction. It describes the amount of light that passes through, is emitted from, or is reflected from a particular area, and falls withi ...
of a heated
black body A black body or blackbody is an idealized physical object, physical body that absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorbs all incident electromagnetic radiation, regardless of frequency or angle of incidence (optics), angle of incidence. T ...
(closely approximated by the photosphere) at these temperatures varies greatly with temperature. Isolated from the surrounding photosphere, a single sunspot would shine brighter than the full moon, with a crimson-orange color. In some forming and decaying sunspots, relatively narrow regions of bright material appear penetrating into or completely dividing an umbra. These formations, referred to as light bridges, have been found to have a weaker, more tilted magnetic field compared to the umbra at the same height in the photosphere. Higher in the photosphere, the light bridge magnetic field merges and becomes comparable to that of the umbra. Gas pressure in light bridges has also been found to dominate over magnetic pressure, and convective motions have been detected. The
Wilson effect In astronomy, the Wilson effect is the perceived depression of a sunspot's umbra, or center, in the Sun's photosphere. The magnitude of the depression is difficult to determine, but may be as large as 1,000 km. Sunspots result from the blockage ...
implies that sunspots are depressions on the Sun's surface.


Lifecycle

The appearance of an individual sunspot may last anywhere from a few days to a few months, though groups of sunspots and their associated active regions tend to last weeks or months. Sunspots expand and contract as they move across the surface of the Sun, with diameters ranging from to .


Formation

Although the details of sunspot formation are still a matter of ongoing research, it is widely understood that they are the visible manifestations of magnetic flux tubes in the Sun's convective zone projecting through the photosphere within active regions. Their characteristic darkening occurs due to this strong magnetic field inhibiting convection in the photosphere. As a result, the energy flux from the Sun's interior decreases, and with it, surface temperature, causing the surface area through which the magnetic field passes to look dark against the bright background of photospheric granules. Sunspots initially appear in the photosphere as small darkened spots lacking a penumbra. These structures are known as solar pores. Over time, these pores increase in size and move towards one another. When a pore gets large enough, typically around in diameter, a penumbra will begin to form.


Decay

Magnetic pressure should tend to remove field concentrations, causing the sunspots to disperse, but sunspot lifetimes are measured in days to weeks. In 2001, observations from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) using sound waves traveling below the photosphere (local helioseismology) were used to develop a three-dimensional image of the internal structure below sunspots; these observations show that a powerful downdraft underneath each sunspot, forms a rotating vortex that sustains the concentrated magnetic field.


Solar cycle

Solar cycles last typically about eleven years, varying from just under 10 to just over 12 years. Over the solar cycle, sunspot populations increase quickly and then decrease more slowly. The point of highest sunspot activity during a cycle is known as solar maximum, and the point of lowest activity as solar minimum. This period is also observed in most other solar activity and is linked to a variation in the solar magnetic field that changes polarity with this period. Early in the cycle, sunspots appear at higher latitudes and then move towards the equator as the cycle approaches maximum, following Spörer's law. Spots from two sequential cycles co-exist for several years during the years near solar minimum. Spots from sequential cycles can be distinguished by direction of their magnetic field and their latitude. The Wolf number sunspot index counts the average number of sunspots and groups of sunspots during specific intervals. The 11-year solar cycles are numbered sequentially, starting with the observations made in the 1750s. George Ellery Hale first linked magnetic fields and sunspots in 1908. Hale suggested that the sunspot cycle period is 22 years, covering two periods of increased and decreased sunspot numbers, accompanied by polar reversals of the solar magnetic dipole field. Horace W. Babcock later proposed a qualitative model for the dynamics of the solar outer layers. The
Babcock Model The Babcock Model describes a mechanism which can explain magnetic and sunspot patterns observed on the Sun. History The modern understanding of sunspots starts with George Ellery Hale, who linked magnetic fields and sunspots. Hale suggested t ...
explains that magnetic fields cause the behavior described by Spörer's law, as well as other effects, which are twisted by the Sun's rotation.


Longer-period trends

Sunspot numbers also change over long periods. For example, during the period known as the modern maximum from 1900 to 1958 the solar maxima trend of sunspot count was upwards; for the following 60 years the trend was mostly downwards. Overall, the Sun was last as active as the modern maximum over 8,000 years ago. Sunspot number is correlated with the intensity of solar radiation over the period since 1979, when satellite measurements became available. The variation caused by the sunspot cycle to solar output is on the order of 0.1% of the solar constant (a peak-to-trough range of 1.3 W·m−2 compared with 1366 W·m−2 for the average solar constant).


Modern observation

Sunspots are observed with land-based and Earth-orbiting
solar telescope A solar telescope is a special purpose telescope used to observe the Sun. Solar telescopes usually detect light with wavelengths in, or not far outside, the visible spectrum. Obsolete names for Sun telescopes include heliograph and photoheliograph ...
s. These telescopes use filtration and projection techniques for direct observation, in addition to various types of filtered cameras. Specialized tools such as spectroscopes and spectrohelioscopes are used to examine sunspots and sunspot areas. Artificial eclipses allow viewing of the circumference of the Sun as sunspots rotate through the horizon. Since looking directly at the Sun with the naked eye permanently damages human vision, amateur observation of sunspots is generally conducted using projected images, or directly through protective filters. Small sections of very dark filter glass, such as a #14 welder's glass, are effective. A telescope eyepiece can project the image, without filtration, onto a white screen where it can be viewed indirectly, and even traced, to follow sunspot evolution. Special purpose
hydrogen-alpha H-alpha (Hα) is a specific deep-red visible spectral line in the Balmer series with a wavelength of 656.28  nm in air and 656.46 nm in vacuum; it occurs when a hydrogen electron falls from its third to second lowest energy level. H-alpha ...
narrow bandpass filters and aluminum-coated glass attenuation filters (which have the appearance of mirrors due to their extremely high
optical density Absorbance is defined as "the logarithm of the ratio of incident to transmitted radiant power through a sample (excluding the effects on cell walls)". Alternatively, for samples which scatter light, absorbance may be defined as "the negative lo ...
) on the front of a telescope provide safe observation through the eyepiece.


Application

Due to their correlation with other kinds of solar activity, sunspots can be used to help predict space weather, the state of the
ionosphere The ionosphere () is the ionized part of the upper atmosphere of Earth, from about to above sea level, a region that includes the thermosphere and parts of the mesosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is ionized by solar radiation. It plays a ...
, and conditions relevant to short-wave radio propagation or satellite communications. High sunspot activity is celebrated by members of the amateur radio community as a harbinger of excellent ionospheric propagation conditions that greatly increase radio range in the HF bands. During peaks in sunspot activity, worldwide radio communication can be achieved on frequencies as high as the 6-meter VHF band. Solar activity (and the solar cycle) have been implicated as a factor in global warming. The first possible example of this is the Maunder Minimum period of low sunspot activity which occurred during the
Little Ice Age The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It was not a true ice age of global extent. The term was introduced into scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939. Ma ...
in Europe.PDF Copy
However, detailed studies from multiple paleoclimate indicators show that the lower northern hemisphere temperatures in the Little Ice Age began while sunspot numbers were still high before the start of the Maunder Minimum, and persisted until after the Maunder Minimum had ceased. Numerical climate modelling indicates that volcanic activity was the main driver of the
Little Ice Age The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It was not a true ice age of global extent. The term was introduced into scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939. Ma ...
. Sunspots themselves, in terms of the magnitude of their radiant-energy deficit, have a weak effect on solar flux. The total effect of sunspots and other magnetic processes in the solar photosphere is an increase of roughly 0.1% in brightness of the Sun in comparison with its brightness at the solar-minimum level. This is a difference in total solar irradiance at Earth over the sunspot cycle of close to 1.37\ \mathrm. Other magnetic phenomena which correlate with sunspot activity include faculae and the chromospheric network. The combination of these magnetic factors mean that the relationship of sunspot numbers to Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) over the decadal-scale solar cycle. and their relationship for century timescales, need not be the same. The main problem with quantifying the longer-term trends in TSI lies in the stability of the absolute radiometry measurements made from space, which has improved in recent decades but remains a problem. Analysis shows that it is possible that TSI was actually higher in the Maunder Minimum compared to present-day levels, but uncertainties are high, with best estimates in the range \pm0.5\ \mathrm with a 2\sigma uncertainty range of \pm1\ \mathrm.


Starspot

In 1947, G. E. Kron proposed that starspots were the reason for periodic changes in brightness on red dwarfs. Since the mid-1990s, starspot observations have been made using increasingly powerful techniques yielding more and more detail: photometry showed starspot growth and decay and showed cyclic behavior similar to the Sun's;
spectroscopy Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter wa ...
examined the structure of starspot regions by analyzing variations in spectral line splitting due to the Zeeman effect; Doppler imaging showed differential rotation of spots for several stars and distributions different from the Sun's; spectral line analysis measured the temperature range of spots and the stellar surfaces. For example, in 1999, Strassmeier reported the largest cool starspot ever seen rotating the giant K0 star XX Triangulum (HD 12545) with a temperature of , together with a warm spot of .


See also

*'' Letters on Sunspots'' * Joy's law * List of solar cycles * Radio propagation * Solar cycle *
Solar rotation Solar rotation varies with latitude. The Sun is not a solid body, but is composed of a gaseous plasma. Different latitudes rotate at different periods. The source of this differential rotation is an area of current research in solar astronomy. ...
* Space weather * Spörer's law * Starspot * Wolf number


References


Further reading

*


External links


Sunspot Database based on Terrestrial (GPR/DPD) and Satellite (SOHO/SDO) observations from 1872 to Nowadays with the newest data.
()
Solar Cycle 24 and VHF Aurora Website (www.solarcycle24.com)

Belgium World Data Center for the sunspot index




Impressive collection of sunspot images
NOAA Solar Cycle Progression
Current solar cycle. ** Current conditions: Space weather
Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Lab

Sun, trek website
An educational resource for teachers and students about the Sun and its effect on the Earth * Tools to display the current sunspot number in a browser *

** ttp://www.n0hr.com/Ham_Radio_Toolbar.htm HamLinks Toolbar – displays solar flux, A Index and K Index data in a toolbar
The Sharpest View of the Sun

Daily Sunspot Update and Picture of the Sun (www.spaceweather.com)
(University of South Wales)


Sunspot data

* ** * ** *** International Sunspot Numbersunspot maximum and minimum 1610–present; annual numbers 1700–present; monthly numbers 1749–present; daily values 1818–present; and sunspot numbers by north and south hemisphere. The McNish–Lincoln sunspot prediction is also included. *** American sunspot numbers 1945–present *** Ancient sunspot data 165 BC to 1684 AD *** Group Sunspot Numbers (Doug Hoyt re-evaluation) 1610–1995 * {{Authority control Solar phenomena Vortices Articles containing video clips