| Sun is giving us a blank stare: No sunspots! |
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| by William Atkins | |
| Saturday, 04 April 2009 | |
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For the last 26 consecutive days and counting in 2009 (as of April 2, 2009), the Sun has had no recorded sunspots by solar astronomers. With the rate of sunspots now at 87% in 2009, scientists are calling it a “spotless rate.” [SpaceWeather.com: “Spotless Suns”] Sunspots are regions on the Sun’s photosphere that have much increased amounts of magnetic activity. The surface area in these regions have lower temperatures than the surrounding area so they appear visible on the Sun from our vantage point here on the Earth. The temperatures of sunspots can range between 4,000 and 5,000 Kelvin (6,740 and 8,540 degrees Fahrenheit, or 3,727 and 4,727 degrees Celsius), which is much lower than the average temperature of about 5,800 Kelvin (9,980 degrees Fahrenheit, 5,527 degrees Celsius) in other neighborhood areas. With lower temperatures, sunspots appear as darkened spots on the Sun. As of September 27, 2008, the Sun had a spotless rate of 73%; that is, the Sun had no sunspots 73% of the days in that year—200 days out of 270. For the entire year of 2008, consisting of 366 days (remember the leap year), the Sun did not have any noted sunspots on 266 days, making it 73% of the time. NASA states (4/1/09), “To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days: Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008.” [NASA: “Deep Solar Minimum”] However, in 2009, the percentage has increased further. As of March 31, 2009, no sunspots were reported on 78 out of 90 days—making it 87%. Page two continues with more information from NASA on the spotless Sun. |
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