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NASA's SDO watches a sunspot turn toward Earth

07.12.17 | NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
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An active region on the sun -- an area of intense and complex magnetic fields -- has rotated into view on the sun and seems to be growing rather quickly in this video captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory between July 5-11, 2017. Such sunspots are a common occurrence on the sun, but are less frequent as we head toward solar minimum, which is the period of low solar activity during its regular approximately 11-year cycle. This sunspot is the first to appear after the sun was spotless for Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/SDO/Joy Ng, producer

An active region on the sun -- an area of intense and complex magnetic fields -- has rotated into view on the sun and seems to be growing rather quickly in this video captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory between July 5-11, 2017. Such sunspots are a common occurrence on the sun, but are less frequent as we head toward solar minimum, which is the period of low solar activity during its regular approximately 11-year cycle. This sunspot is the first to appear after the sun was spotless for two days, and it is the only sunspot group at this moment. Like freckles on the face of the sun, they appear to be small features, but size is relative: The dark core of this sunspot is actually larger than Earth.

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Additional Media

SDO Views a Sunspot
An active region on the sun -- an area of intense and complex magnetic fields -- has rotated into view on the sun and seems to be growing rather quickly in this video captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory between July 5-11, 2017. Such sunspots are a common occurrence on the sun, but are less frequent as we head toward solar minimum, which is the period of low solar activity during its regular approximately 11-year cycle. This sunspot is the first to appear after the sun was spotless for Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/SDO/Joy Ng, producer

Keywords

Earth Core Magnetic Fields Sunspot Regions

Contact Information

Lina Tran
kathalina.k.tran@nasa.gov

Source

This article is based on a news release from NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. BrightSurf curates and republishes science news from research institutions worldwide; the original release is linked below.

Original Source
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasas-sdo-watches-a-sunspot-turn-toward-earth

How to Cite This Article

APA:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. (2017, July 12). NASA's SDO watches a sunspot turn toward Earth. Brightsurf News. https://www.brightsurf.com/news/86G656ML/nasas-sdo-watches-a-sunspot-turn-toward-earth.html
MLA:
"NASA's SDO watches a sunspot turn toward Earth." Brightsurf News, Jul. 12 2017, https://www.brightsurf.com/news/86G656ML/nasas-sdo-watches-a-sunspot-turn-toward-earth.html.