Saturday, July 19, 2014

Sunspots


Sometimes if you look at the sun with the right kind of telescope, you can see dark spots on the sun.

This is caused by the magnetic field around the sun causing problems on the photosphere.

It creates some cold spots no the sun.
The normal temperature of the photosphere is over 10,000 degrees F, and the temperature of the sunspots can get below 5,000 degrees F.

That's still way hotter than Earth, but the difference in temperature makes a dark spot on the sun, and we call that a sunspot.
sunspot
(from: wikipedia - sunspot)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Canopus