All About Sunspots, Are They Good Or Bad?

The Sun is quite a useful piece of the solar system. Without it, let’s face it, we wouldn’t be here, so when it starts doing odd things it is a cause for concern. sunspots appear normally and are a regular feature of the Sun. So how do sunspots affect the Earth? Should we really worry and jump on the nearest starship to Alpha centauri?

The Sun is 92,960,000 miles from the Earth and is made up entirely of gas. The gas is really sensitive to magnetic fields and is therefore called plasma. The outer layer of the Sun is about 6000°C and the core about 15,000,000°C which causes chemical and nuclear reactions such as fusion, to occur and is what I would call hot.

The Sun

A sunspot is not matter but a strong magnetic field that appears dark because it blocks the upflow of heat from the sun’s interior.

Close up sunspot (Computer generated)

The cause of the sun’s magnetic field is, in part, the movement of the convection cells. Any electrically charged object can create a magnetic field simply by moving. The convection cells, which are composed of positive ions and electrons, circulate in a way that helps create the solar field.

When the sun’s magnetic field becomes complex, field lines resemble a kinked, twisted garden hose. The field develops kinks and twists for two reasons: The sun rotates more rapidly at the equator than at higher latitudes, and the inner parts of the sun rotate more rapidly than the surface. The differences in rotational speed stretch field lines in an easterly direction. Eventually, the lines become so distorted that kinks and twists develop.

In some areas, the field is thousands of times stronger than the overall magnetic field. In these places, clusters of field lines break through the surface, creating loops in the solar atmosphere. At one end of the loop, the breakthrough point is a magnetic north pole. At this point, the direction of the field lines is upward, that is, away from the interior. At the other end of the loop, the breakthrough point is a magnetic south pole, and the lines point downward. A sunspot forms at each point. The field lines guide ions and electrons into the space above the sunspots, producing gigantic loops of gas.

A joint ESA and NASA mission has sent a satellite to observe the Sun. SOHO (solar and heliospheric observatory) gives an uninterrupted view of the Sun as it is locked between the Earth and the Sun and therefore has a major advantage over satellites that were orbiting the Earth and could only get glimpses of the Sun. SOHO is trapped intentionally at the Lagrange L1 point which is where the Earth and Sun’s gravity balance out.

Other spacecraft such as the twin STEREO probes, the five THEMIS probes, Hinode, ACE, Wind, TRACE, AIM, TIMED, Geotail and others also observe the Sun.

These satellites amongst other things look at the magnetic field of the Sun and the sunspots and can give a solar forecast. Obviously, when you are sailing around in your single seat solar sail spacecraft this may be quite useful to pick up the best solar wind. SOHO has allowed us to keep an eye on sunspot activity and at the moment the sunspot activity is very low.

Sunspot compared to Earth

For the last 200 years sunspot activity has come and gone in 11 year cycles, it’s just the way the Sun works. At the moment sunspot activity is at the lowest we have seen for 100 years and is decreasing even further.

Sunspots have an effect on the Earth but the precise effect is not known. Sunspots are linked to solar flares and coronal mass ejections. In the 1600s and 1700s there were severe winters and cold temperatures in North America and Europe. There was almost no sunspot activity in those centuries as well. Proof that this sort of sunspot activity affects the Earth remains elusive as does the overall information that we can gain from the Sun it is almost impossible to say anything about the effects on the Earth.

Maunder minimum

When we are at a high of sunspots, the solar flares (which are a quick release of energy from the sun) and the coronal mass ejections which are plasma shooting out from the Sun are at an high. The bigger the sunspot the bigger the solar flares and coronal mass ejections. This can cause large amounts of energy hurtling into the Earth which disrupt cell phones and radio communications and can also affect the power grid. In 1998 for example transformers in Quebec were damaged due to a solar high and left 6 million people without electricity.

Funnily enough the increased sunspot activity can actually help radio reception as the radiation bends the atmosphere.

There is some sort of connection between sunspot activity and climate activity on Earth but it is not fully understood. On looking at the sun you would expect global cooling when there are a few sunspots and global warming when there are none, This is total trash.

UFOs are said to be linked to sunspots as well. A posting from a popular UFO site states-

UFOS AND SUNSPOTS
UFOs are powered by stable nuclear fusion reactors, and sunspots are one kind of stable nuclear fusion reactors.
A stable nuclear fusion reactor can produce:
(1) A centripetal force (gravity is one kind of the centripetal forces),
(2) A strong magnetic field.
A lot of strange phenomena of UFOs are caused by this centripetal force.
UFOs have strong magnetic fields too.
Certainly, it is very difficult for us to understand that sunspots are stable nuclear fusion reactors.

I do have a little bit of trouble with sunspots powering UFOs.

Do I need to say any more?

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