EarthSky community members have captured the giant sunspot region – AR 2781 – currently making its way across the sun’s visible surface. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/photos-sunspots-ar2781-solar-cycle-25…
Tag: sunspots
Solar cycle 25: The sun wakes up
The sun has entered its 25th solar cycle and is about to wake up. For the last few years our star has been pretty sleepy, with few sunspots, bright flares or massive ejections of magnetized plasma emanating from its surface. This quiet period is known as the solar minimum, but things are starting to heat up again. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-10-solar-sun.html…
Studying the sun as a star to understand stellar flares and exoplanets
New research shows that sunspots and other active regions can change the overall solar emissions. The sunspots cause some emissions to dim and others to brighten; the timing of the changes also varies between different types of emissions. This knowledge will help astronomers characterize the conditions of stars, which has important implications for finding exoplanets around those stars. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-10-sun-star-stellar-flares-exoplanets.html…
A new look at sunspots
NASA’s extensive fleet of spacecraft allows scientists to study the Sun extremely close-up—one of the agency’s spacecraft is even on its way to fly through the Sun’s outer atmosphere. But sometimes taking a step back can provide new insight. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-10-sunspots.html…
Can we predict large solar flares?
Solar storms pose risks for society, but more accurate space weather forecasts may be coming soon. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/can-we-predict-large-solar-flares-kasano-interview…
Starspots: Revving up the variability of solar-like stars
In cosmic comparison, the Sun is a bore. While the brightness of some other stars with similar characteristics fluctuates strongly, the Sun’s variations are much more moderate. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany, from the Turkish-German University and Boğaziçi University in Turkey, and from Kyung Hee University in South Korea, have now investigated how…
The presence of resonating cavities above sunspots has been confirmed
Sunspots are darker regions which often appear on the Sun’s surface. They are caused by strong concentrations of magnetic field, and can be as big as the Earth, or even much bigger. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-09-presence-resonating-cavities-sunspots.html…
Solar Orbiter’s 1st views of the sun
Solar Orbiter’s new views are the closest images of the sun taken so far. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/solar-orbiters-first-views-of-the-sun…
New sunspots potentially herald increased solar activity
On May 29, 2020, a family of sunspots—dark spots that freckle the face of the sun, representing areas of complex magnetic fields—sported the biggest solar flare since October 2017. Although the sunspots are not yet visible (they will soon rotate into view over the left limb of the sun), NASA spacecraft spotted the flares high above them. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-06-sunspots-potentially-herald-solar.html…
How likely are space super-storms?
A new analysis shows that “severe” space super-storms happened 42 years out of the last 150, and “great” super-storms happened 6 years out of 150. These storms can disrupt modern electronics, aviation and satellite systems and communications. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/how-likely-space-super-storms-solar-flares-carrington-event…