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On 17 April, sunspot group 2994 released an X1.2 flare. [47] [48] However, the complex's activity subsided slightly in the next few days. [49] While crossing the solar limb, sunspot region 2992 emitted M7.3 and X2.2 flares, the latter being the strongest of the cycle up to that point. [49]
Individual sunspots or groups of sunspots may last anywhere from a few days to a few months, but eventually decay. Sunspots expand and contract as they move across the surface of the Sun, with diameters ranging from 16 km (10 mi) [3] to 160,000 km (100,000 mi). [4] Larger sunspots can be visible from Earth without the aid of a telescope. [5]
Reconstruction of solar activity over 11,400 years. Sunspot numbers over the past 11,400 years have been reconstructed using carbon-14 and beryllium-10 isotope ratios. [10] The level of solar activity beginning in the 1940s is exceptional – the last period of similar magnitude occurred around 9,000 years ago (during the warm Boreal period).
Time is running out to see the massive sunspot before it is hidden from view. As the sun rotates, so too do the sunspots on its surface. In a few days, the sunspot will no longer be on the Earth ...
Sunspots are one of the longest-kept observational data sets, with record-keeping extending back to the 17th century. “Sunspots are our window to the past to compare current activity to what it ...
CMEs often form around sunspots, although scientists aren’t entirely sure why. Sunspot formation is cyclical, and the current solar cycle has reached the highest number of sunspots since 2001 ...
Solar cycles are nearly periodic 11-year changes in the Sun's activity that are based on the number of sunspots present on the Sun's surface. The first solar cycle conventionally is said to have started in 1755. The source data are the revised International Sunspot Numbers (ISN v2.0), as available at SILSO. [1]
Sunspot and infrared spectral line measurements made in the latter part of the first decade of the 2000s suggested that sunspot activity may again be disappearing, possibly leading to a new minimum. [48] From 2007 to 2009, sunspot levels were far below average. In 2008, the Sun was spot-free 73 percent of the time, extreme even for a solar minimum.