Solar activity

Sunspots

A wonderful rhythm in the ebb and flow of sunspot activity dominates the atmosphere of the Sun. Sunspots, the largest of which can be seen even without a telescope, are regions of extremely strong magnetic field found on the Sun’s surface. A typical mature sunspot is seen in white light to have roughly the form of a daisy. It consists of a dark central core, the umbra, where the magnetic flux loop emerges vertically from below, surrounded by a less-dark ring of fibrils called the penumbra, where the magnetic field spreads outward horizontally.

George Ellery Hale observed the sunspot spectrum in the early 20th century with his new solar telescope and found it similar to that of cool red M-type stars observed with his new stellar telescope. Thus, he showed that the umbra appears dark because it is quite cool, only about 3,000 K, as compared with the 5,800 K temperature of the surrounding photosphere. The spot pressure, consisting of magnetic and gas pressure, must balance the pressure of its surroundings; hence the spot must somehow cool until the inside gas pressure is considerably lower than that of the outside. Owing to the great magnetic energy present in sunspots, regions near the cool spots actually have the hottest and most intense activity. Sunspots are thought to be cooled by the suppression of their strong fields with the convective motions bringing heat from below. For this reason, there appears to be a lower limit on the size of the spots of approximately 500 kilometres. Smaller ones are rapidly heated by radiation from the surroundings and destroyed.

Although the magnetic field suppresses convection and random motions are much lower than in the surroundings, a wide variety of organized motions occur in spots, mostly in the penumbra, where the horizontal field lines permit detectable horizontal flows. One such motion is the Evershed effect, an outward flow at a rate of one kilometre per second in the outer half of the penumbra that extends beyond the penumbra in the form of moving magnetic features. These features are elements of the magnetic field that flow outward across the area surrounding the spot. In the chromosphere above a sunspot, a reverse Evershed flow appears as material spirals into the spot; the inner half of the penumbra flows inward to the umbra.

Oscillations are observed in sunspots as well. When a section of the photosphere known as a light bridge crosses the umbra, rapid horizontal flow is seen. Although the umbral field is too strong to permit motion, rapid oscillations called umbral flashes appear in the chromosphere just above, with a 150-second period. In the chromosphere above the penumbra, so-called running waves are observed to travel radially outward with a 300-second period.

Most frequently, sunspots are seen in pairs, or in groups of pairs, of opposite polarity, which correspond to clusters of magnetic flux loops intersecting the surface of the Sun. Sunspots of opposite polarity are connected by magnetic loops that arch up into the overlying chromosphere and low corona. The coronal loops can contain dense, hot gas that can be detected by its X-ray and extreme ultraviolet radiation.

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The members of a spot pair are identified by their position in the pair with respect to the rotation of the Sun; one is designated as the leading spot and the other as the following spot. In a given hemisphere (north or south), all spot pairs typically have the same polar configuration—e.g., all leading spots may have northern polarity, while all following spots have southern polarity (see below). A new spot group generally has the proper polarity configuration for the hemisphere in which it forms; if not, it usually dies out quickly. Occasionally, regions of reversed polarity survive to grow into large, highly active spot groups. An ensemble of sunspots, the surrounding bright chromosphere, and the associated strong magnetic field regions constitute what is termed an active region. Areas of strong magnetic fields that do not coalesce into sunspots form regions called plages, which are prominent in the red Hα line and are also visible in continuous light near the limb.

The emergence of a new spot group emphasizes the three-dimensional structure of the magnetic loop. First we see a small brightening (called an emerging flux region [EFR]) in the photosphere and a greater one in the chromosphere. Within an hour, two tiny spots of opposite polarity are seen, usually with the proper magnetic polarities for that hemisphere. The spots are connected by dark arches (arch filaments) outlining the magnetic lines of force. As the loop rises, the spots spread apart and grow, but not symmetrically. The preceding spot moves westward at about 1 kilometre per second, while the follower is more or less stationary. A number of additional small spots, or pores, appear. The preceding pores then merge into a larger spot, while the following spot often dies out. If the spots separate farther, an EFR remains behind in the centre, and more flux emerges. But large growth usually depends on more EFRs, i.e., flux loops emerging near the main spots. In every case the north and south poles balance, since there are no magnetic monopoles.

Solar activity tends to occur over the entire surface of the Sun between +/−40° latitude in a systematic way, supporting the idea that the phenomenon is global. While there are sizable variations in the progress of the activity cycle, overall it is impressively regular, indicating a well-established order in the numbers and latitudinal positions of the spots. At the start of a cycle, the number of groups and their size increase rapidly until a maximum in number (known as sunspot maximum) occurs after about two or three years and a maximum in spot area about one year later. The average lifetime of a medium-sized spot group is about one solar rotation, but a small emerging group may only last a day. The largest spot groups and the greatest eruptions usually occur two or three years after the maximum of the sunspot number. At maximum there might be 10 groups and 300 spots across the Sun, but a huge spot group can have 200 spots in it. The progress of the cycle may be irregular; even near the maximum the number may temporarily drop to low values.

The sunspot cycle returns to a minimum after approximately 11 years. At sunspot minimum there are at most a few small spots on the Sun, usually at low latitudes, and there may be months with no spots at all. New-cycle spots begin to emerge at higher latitudes, between 25° and 40°, with polarity opposite the previous cycle. The new-cycle spots at high latitude and old-cycle spots at low latitude may be present on the Sun at once. The first new-cycle spots are small and last only a few days. Since the rotation period is 27 days (longer at higher latitudes), these spots usually do not return, and newer spots appear closer to the equator. For a given 11-year cycle, the magnetic polarity configuration of the spot groups is the same in a given hemisphere and is reversed in the opposite hemisphere. The magnetic polarity configuration in each hemisphere reverses in the next cycle. Thus, new spots at high latitudes in the northern hemisphere may have positive polarity leading and negative following, while the groups from the previous cycle, at low latitude, will have the opposite orientation. As the cycle proceeds, the old spots disappear, and new-cycle spots appear in larger numbers and sizes at successively lower latitudes. The latitude distribution of spots during a given cycle occurs in a butterfly-like pattern called the butterfly diagram

Since the magnetic polarity configuration of the sunspot groups reverses every 11 years, it returns to the same value every 22 years, and this length is considered to be the period of a complete magnetic cycle. At the beginning of each 11-year cycle, the overall solar field, as determined by the dominant field at the pole, has the same polarity as the following spots of the previous cycle. As active regions are broken apart, the magnetic flux is separated into regions of positive and negative sign. After many spots have emerged and died out in the same general area, large unipolar regions of one polarity or the other appear and move toward the Sun’s corresponding pole. During each minimum the poles are dominated by the flux of the following polarity in that hemisphere, and that is the field seen from Earth. But if all magnetic fields are balanced, how can the magnetic fields be separated into large unipolar regions that govern the polar field? No answer has been found to this question. Owing to the differential rotation of the Sun, the fields approaching the poles rotate more slowly than the sunspots, which at this point in the cycle have congregated in the rapidly rotating equatorial region. Eventually the weak fields reach the pole and reverse the dominant field there. This reverses the polarity to be taken by the leading spots of the new spot groups, thereby continuing the 22-year cycle.

While the sunspot cycle has been quite regular for some centuries, there have been sizable variations. In the period 1955–70 there were far more spots in the northern hemisphere, while in the 1990 cycle they dominated in the southern hemisphere. The two cycles that peaked in 1946 and 1957 were the largest in history. The English astronomer E. Walter Maunder found evidence for a period of low activity, pointing out that very few spots were seen between 1645 and 1715. Although sunspots had been first detected about 1600, there are few records of spot sightings during this period, which is called the Maunder minimum. Experienced observers reported the occurrence of a new spot group as a great event, mentioning that they had seen none for years. After 1715 the spots returned. This period was associated with the coldest period of the long cold spell in Europe that extended from about 1500 to 1850 and is known as the Little Ice Age. However, cause and effect have not been proved. There is some evidence for other such low-activity periods at roughly 500-year intervals. When solar activity is high, the strong magnetic fields carried outward by the solar wind block out the high-energy galactic cosmic rays approaching Earth, and less carbon-14 is produced. Measurement of carbon-14 in dated tree rings confirms the low activity at this time. Still, the 11-year cycle was not detected until the 1840s, so observations prior to that time were somewhat irregular.

The origin of the sunspot cycle is not known. Because there is no reason that a star in radiative equilibrium should produce such fields, it is reasoned that relative motions in the Sun twist and enhance magnetic flux loops. The motions in the convective zone may contribute their energy to magnetic fields, but they are too chaotic to produce the regular effects observed. The differential rotation, however, is regular, and it could wind existing field lines in a regular way; hence, most models of the solar dynamo are based on the differential rotation in some respect. The reason for the differential rotation also remains unknown.

Besides sunspots, there exist many tiny spotless dipoles called ephemeral active regions, which last less than a day on average and are found all over the Sun rather than just in the spot latitudes. The number of active regions emerging on the entire Sun is about two per day, while ephemeral regions occur at a rate of about 600 per day. Therefore, even though the ephemeral regions are quite small, at any one time they may constitute most of the magnetic flux erupting on the Sun. However, because they are magnetically neutral and quite small, they probably do not play a role in the cycle evolution and the global field pattern.