What causes sunspots?
As far as we know so far, the Sun’s surface is fluidic. The polar regions rotate somewhat slower than the equatorial region. This causes the Sun’s magnetic field lines to become distorted into tube shapes. The more these lines are stretched, the more intense the magnetic field within them becomes. Eventually they break the surface appearing as what we call sunspots. Technical details may be studied by researching the Babcock model. As the magnetic field line extends out of the photosphere of the Sun, it becomes cooler than the photosphere. This makes it appear darker than the photosphere. The umbra would be extending the furthest and thus be the coolest and thereby the darkest. Some sunspots do not have penumbras. They are called pores. The pairing would be where the magnetic field exits at one point of the Sun as positive charge and returns as negative charge (or vice versa) and of course if the northern hemisphere is having field lines leave as positive and return as negative then th
Sunspots look like dark, cool splotches on the bright surface of the sun. But these spots only look cool because they’re cooler than the areas around them. The surface of the sun is about 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit, while the gases over a sunspot may be “only” 7,200 degrees. Sunspots are caused by the magnetic fields of the sun.
I am taking a class called Science Research and Technology (SRT) in which I am doing a project on the cause of sunspots. Scientists say that sunspots are caused by disturbances in the sun’s magnetic field, but what disturbance and the exact cause isn’t clear. Could you please tell me what you think on this topic REPLY Before telling you anything about sunspots, I should say that scientists do not understand them well enough. How deep do they go? Once they were thought to be associated with magnetic fields near the surface, now astronomers believe they go quite deep. We cannot study very well what goes on inside the Sun. Anyway, I once wrote a fairly thorough review of sunspots at http://www.phy6.org/earthmag/mill_5.htm What is stated there is still believed: sunspots are caused by the uneven rotation of the Sun (see image there), the equator rotating faster than the polar regions. That stretches out magnetic field lines, crowding them together and making their magnetic field stronger.
I can’t answer fully, but I’ll respond with what I do know. Particles do get constrained along the magnetic field lines and shoot out of the sun. If you’ve ever seen a picture of a solar eclipse you’ll see strands of light in the corona which are streams of particles. I think sunspots wouldn’t necessarily be formed in pairs, since if you can have magnetic field lines which do not reconnect with the sun.
