The
sunspot cycle is characterized by its variability as much as its regularity.
AR1835 S09[degrees]/011[degrees] was a single Hsx
sunspot on the SE limb on Aug 24 and just over the limb on Aug 25 & 26.
All structural features associated with solar activity (
sunspots, faculae, prominences, flares, spicules, etc ...) tend to be explained using magnetic fields, as the only means to impart structural features to a gaseous entity which, in reality, can support none.
A group of
sunspots some 100,000 kilometres across emerged at the weekend, signalling the possibility of further solar storms.
Unbeknown to Europeans, Chinese astronomers had discovered
sunspots more than a millennium earlier.
Hill and colleagues based their prediction on three changes in the sun spotted by scientific teams: Weakening
sunspots, fewer streams spewing from the poles of the sun's corona and a disappearing solar jet stream.
The last major occasion of this was between 1645-1715, when no
sunspots on the sun's surface appeared during a 70-year-period.
There was a period from 1645 to 1715 when the sun showed similar lack of
sunspots, this was the Maunder minimum when trees stopped growing and the River Thames froze.
Solar wind, according to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, consists of magnetized plasma flares and in some cases is linked to
sunspots. It emanates from the sun and influences galactic rays that may in turn affect atmospheric phenomena on Earth, such as cloud cover.
By comparison, AeroLEDs says the nominal life of its
SUNSpot is 50,000 hours running at a current of about 2 to 3 amps.
Papers from a July 2005 meeting in Stein's honor are presented here, in sections on solar surface observations, surface diagnostics, magneto-convection and dynamos, sub-surface solar structures, flux emergence and active regions,
sunspots, chromospheric observations and models, and connections between the photosphere, chromosphere, and corona.
The Sun and UV section features
Sunspot, a character who discusses some of the dangers of too much sunlight.