Transcript Sunspots

Sunspots
What are they?
What do they do to us?
Why should you even care?
What is a sunspot


Sunspots are temporary phenomena on the
photosphere of the Sun that appear visibly as
dark spots compared to surrounding regions.
They are caused by intense magnetic activity
that draws off the convection of heat to the
surface, thus cooling the surface.
Sunspots are usually in pairs because of the
magnetic activity causing North and South
poles at either of the spots.
Pic on next slide
NASA Image of sunspots,
September, 2011
What do sunspots do to us?



Sunspots are a main hotbed of solar flares and
prominences from the sun.
These are in turn pushed by their energy into
space as solar wind once they break free of
the sun's gravity
These solar winds are comprised of highly
charged particles hurtling towards Earth
Sunspot projecting a flare into space
What does that mean to you?



All of those charged particles will wreak havoc with
electronics. A particularly large solar flare caused
blackouts over a large portion of Canada. But who
cares, it's Canada.
The particles can also cause the Aurora Borealis
over the northern latitudes, known as the Northern
Lights.
On a darker note this can also cause massive
disruptions to communications, GPS, and military
satellites. So if a bad solar storm were to hit, it could
potentially cut off your phone from Facebook, cause
your car to get wrong directions, and make the Air
Force shoot a missile at the wrong building.
What happens with a solar flare.
Watch Danger Solar Flare and
information about the SDO
Answer the questions on the provided sheet --be
ready to discuss your answers
A little Sunspot math
Let’s go outside to look at sunspots using
an instrument to safely do so:
Each class period, two of you will go out to
sketch the sunspots so we can record each
class period where they move. We will
graph out the results in May and see what
has happened over a 6 week period.