So what are these spots?
A sunspot is an area on the sun that is cooler than the area around it. While they look like plack spots, they are not actually black. They area surrounding the spots are so bright that they appear black. If you were to take the rest of the sun out of the picture, the sun spots would actually be quite bright.
The sun spots in the picture to the left are actually larger than the earth. They are thousands of milse across.
These spots appear and then dissapear within a few days or weeks. Some years there are more spots appearing on the sun. There is actually a pattern to their appearance thais calle the sun spot cycle. |