What are Sunspots?

diciembre 12, 2018

What are Sunspots? https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix_xUSbFrP2o-BKS9uZtHbpgue-6pUSJP27nicmx5_ParuV5R5MJeqJ-Gq8wTE_0jz9u-VowhTzsGUefWCytB1NXvavucB20EQ_4boW8X8OE81JvHt6hId80n1QZjevCCK5BpfaWwLSZc/w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu/manchas+solares.jpg

What are Sunspots?

Enlarged image of a sunspot, where it is clearly visible
the Umbra and the Gloom.

On the visible surface of the Sun Dark areas called "Sunspots" are appreciated and developed through the following process:

1. arise

2. participate in the solar rotation

3. change shape and size, and

4. they disintegrate or disappear

They usually last several days, although the larger ones can be maintained for several weeks.

A typical sunspot has a darker inner area, called umbra, surrounded by an area of intermediate shine and filamentous aspect, the gloom.

Sunspots in one of the active regions of the Sun.
In the lower right corner an image of the Earth has been superimposed on the same scale,
to be able to compare their sizes.
Credits: University of Utrecht, The Netherlands.

The spots are dark due to their lower temperature, about 3700 K in the umbra, compared to 5700 K in the surrounding areas. The intense concentration of magnetic field, which in spots can be thousands of times greater than the earth's magnetic field, inhibits the convective movements that heat the photosphere from below, which causes the relative cooling that makes the dark spots. In the umbra, the magnetic field is more intense and practically vertical, while in the penumbra, its intensity is less and its lines become horizontal.

Stains observed in the solar disk in September 2011.

Stains or sets of spots usually appear in bipolar groups, with the first spot (preceding spot) in the direction of the solar rotation with a magnetic polarity, and the last spot (or subsequent) with the opposite polarity...