Sun Spots are Super!!!

Ever since the Onizuka Day i have been wanting to take a look at the sun again and see if there were any more sunspots! I like the sun a lot more than the other parts of your system because the sun is always changing and sometimes is unpredictable. So I am wondering, what causes these "Sun Spots"? Why are they dark?

Sunspots are caused by disturbances in the Sun's magnetic field, sometimes scientists track the region of the sunspot and have found out the specific areas of the sun have and abnormal amount of sunspots which can help predict solar storms.

Sunspots are dark, planet-sized regions that appear on the "surface" of the Sun. Sunspots are "dark" because they are cooler than their surroundings, but if you could cut an average sunspot out of the Sun and place it elsewhere in the night sky, it would be about as bright as a full moon. Some as large as 50,000 miles in diameter, move across the surface of the sun, contracting and expanding as they go.

What makes up a sun spot?
UMBRA:
The umbra is the inner, dark, cool region of a sun spot. The umbra of a sunspot can be up to 12,000 miles wide. In the umbra, the Sun's magnetic field is very strong.

PENUMBRA:
The penumbra is the outer, relatively light region of a sun spot. It is shaped like a ring surrounding the darker, cooler umbra.

PORES:
A pore is a small sunspot that doesn't have a penumbra. Pores are up to about 1,500 miles across and are lighter than a sunspot's umbra.


To check out more about the these Super Sunspots take a look at this Super Website!