Sunspots
Sunspots
Sunspots
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sunspots
Sunspots are dark areas of the Sun. They appear dark as they are
relatively cooler than the rest of the areas around the Sun’s surface and
block the light and hold in the hot material from within, preventing them
from being transferred out of its surface due to its very strong magnetic
fields. The magnetic fields are the strongest in sunspots than in other
areas in the Sun and are about 2500 times stronger than that in Earth!
How amazing! Although those areas are cooler, they are still extremely
hot for about 6,500 degrees Fahrenheit!
Fun Fact: Sunspots are one of the phenomena that is responsible for the
Northern Lights, which also includes solar flares and solar wind. This is
mainly caused by the magnetosphere by solar wind. Sunspots give
‘coronal mass ejections’, which cause streams of charged particles to
rush towards Earth. These particles interact with the planet’s magnetic
field and create beautiful Aurora displays, which are natural bright dancing
lights in the sky. Aurelia borealis is one of the examples that is spectacular
for sightseeing as seen in the night sky.
Effects of Sunspots to our planet Earth
Form Northern and Southern Lights (aurora)
As mentioned above, sunspots are one of the temporary phenomena that
cause the formation of these. As sunspots cause solar flares, which
cause solar wind emitting CMEs, the subatomically charged particles get
past the magnetic field and strike at the atoms in Earth’s atmosphere,
which causes the electrons to move at a higher-energy state or excited
state. When the electrons go back to its original energy state, a photon of
light is given off. The process that took place creates an aurora.
Increase Temperature & Change Weather Patterns
An increase in sunspots will mean there are more active solar activities
that will take place in the sun. Since there are more active sunspots,
there will be more active solar flares resulting in more solar wind, ejecting
more energy from the stream of subatomically charged particles. Thus,
more energy and UV radiation coming from the Sun will be transferred to
the Earth’s atmosphere, which eventually causes a possible increase in
global temperature. An increase in warmness of the atmosphere leads to
more increased heat that reaches the Earth’s surface, which most likely
increases the chance of precipitation especially in the tropical region.
Although we might not know exactly yet, scientists are very curious to find
out once it happens. What we do know on the other hand is that it will lead
to producing fewer solar storms during a prolonged quiet period, which
would be good news for satellite operators, astronauts, and Earthbound
utility companies preventing from triggering blackouts.
In the past, there are some pieces of evidence that may prove scientists'
hypothesis to be correct. One of them is the so-called Maunder Minimum,
a 70-year period that began around 1645, when sunspots vanished
virtually from the sun's surface. The declining event occurred at the same
time during a climate period known as the Little Ice Age, when
temperatures fell significantly in various locations around the globe and
different times during the time span.
2. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sun-spots-and-climate-change/
3. https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/solar-activity/en/
4. https://www.livescience.com/54652-plasma.html
5. https://www.theaurorazone.com/about-the-aurora/are-the-northern-lights-going-to-disappear
6. https://science.howstuffworks.com/dictionary/astronomy-terms/solar-wind-info.htm
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora
8. https://reason.com/2009/08/27/sunspots-do-really-affect-weat/
9. https://earthsky.org/earth/what-causes-the-aurora-borealis-or-northern-lights
10. https://www.weather.gov/fsd/sunspots
11. http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap02/sunspots.html
12. https://phys.org/news/2016-03-powerful-geomagnetic-storms-solar.html
13. https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/0614/A-sun-with-no-sun-spots-What-that-could-mean-for-Ea
rth-and-its-climate
14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle
15. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Schwabe
16. https://www.space.com/484-sunspot-activity-8-000-year-high.html
17. https://www.windows2universe.org/sun/activity/sunspot_history.html
18. https://www.livescience.com/51597-maunder-minimum-mini-ice-age.html
19. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum
20. https://www.britannica.com/science/Dalton-minimum
21. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Minimum
FIGURE REFERENCE LIST:
1. https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/solar-activity/en/solar-activity2.en.jpg
2. https://www.space.com/14736-sunspots-sun-spots-explained.html
3. https://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/help/what-are-sunspots
4. https://www.observatoiresolaire.eu/astronomy-blog/sunspots-and-evershed-flows
5. https://science.howstuffworks.com/dictionary/astronomy-terms/solar-wind-info.htm
6. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Cloud_cover_over_France.jpg
7. https://travel.usnews.com/gallery/the-13-best-places-to-see-the-northern-lights
8. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ionospheric_absorption_(en).svg
9. https://phys.org/news/2016-03-powerful-geomagnetic-storms-solar.html
10. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/science/space/03sun.html
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sunspot_Numbers.png
12. https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei
13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Samuel_Heinrich_Schwabe.jpg