Sunspots

Read Laboratory Exercise 6, section 3 and answer questions 11-16.

Figure 6.9 Sunspot

Object: Sunspot
Filter: visible light
Temperature: 3700 K
Visible features: umbra, penumbra

dark sunspot, magnified

Figure 6.10 Sunspot Time-Lapse

The largest sunspot group of the past ten years crossed the surface of the Sun late March of 2001. The group was designated Active Region 9393. The time-lapse sequence below shows AR 9393 as it evolved from March 27 to April 2.

spot_csm

Figure 6.11 Largest Sunspot Group

From top to bottom, these stacked panels show the largest sunspot group in a decade in visible, extreme ultraviolet, and x-ray light. All were taken on March 29, around the time the famous solar active region, cataloged as AR 9393, was at its peak size. The top panel is in visible light (photosphere). Middle panel is in ultraviolet (highest level of chromosphere). The bottom panel is in X-rays (corona).

spotstack

Below is a Magnetograph of the same region. Areas that are strongly white or strongly black correspond to strong magnetic fields. Grey areas correspond to weak magnetic fields.

magnet_march01

Figure 6.12 Diagram of Magnetic Field Lines

This diagram illustrates how the magnetic field lines in the chromosphere (dark blue) and the corona (light blue) are connected to sunspots on the photosphere (green).

mag_carpet

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