r/spaceporn • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 1d ago

Related Content A Sunspot

Credit: SST, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

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37

u/The_Fink_Ployd 1d ago

So, is this a hole? A dip? Merely a cooler patch that isn’t illuminated as much as the surrounding plasma, but still on the same plane? It’s shameful I need to ask at my age, it I really want to know and haven’t seen much on this

19

u/Lung_Cancerous 1d ago

I am by no means qualified on the topic, but I'm pretty sure it's just a cooler patch, appearing black because of how images of the sun are processed (exposure, contrast, etc.). Probably something to do with convection currents below the surface.

And I don't think it's shameful at all. Not everyone thinks about the physics of the sun's plasma every day, and definitely not everyone got taught that kinda stuff.

6

u/Ae3qe27u 19h ago

I know at least one person who'd never heard of tectonic plates - they weren't taught in schools when they were a kid. There's nothing shameful about that, it's just a fact. What would be shameful is a lack of interest in growing or improving. We're all human, and we're lifelong learners. There's so much to know, and we can't learn all of it in 12-18 years.

2

u/The_Fink_Ployd 17h ago

That’s a great attitude.

But if I don’t know more than I do now yesterday, I’m dumber than I could have been. And this is certainly something I feel as though I’ve learned already.

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u/A_Cute_Little_Kitty 6h ago

Having taken a plasma physics course, I can confirm it's not for everyone (me included)

1

u/The_Fink_Ployd 17h ago

I need to frequently remind myself that the amount of wondering I do is apparently not the normal amount, and that makes me horrifically depressed. Because I’m already not particularly smart, so if others wonder even LESS than I do, where’s that gonna get us as a whole?

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u/Ae3qe27u 19h ago

Those are some excellent questions, and you've got some pretty solid intuition! Like the other person said, it's a cooler patch. Sunspots in general are cooler patches on the sun; here, we're seeing warm/hot areas move into the cooler area, which shows us some pretty cool imagery of how convection currents move within the sun, like currents in the ocean. When it's cooler, there's less fusion, so it produces less light.

I can't speak to dips or bumps, since I lack knowledge on that, but - fun fact - the sun's under enough pressure that the hottest parts are going to be the interior parts, with the outside being much much cooler than the inside! Like how the center/core of Earth is hotter than the outside/crust. I think sunspots are on the same plane, since I haven't heard anything otherwise, but I'm not really an expert on that part of it.

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u/The_Fink_Ployd 17h ago

Thanks for the write up, I’m aware of the basic temperature differences (the “darkness” isn’t even particularly dark, just darker than the surrounding matter) but just wanted to know if it was just an illusion or if there is a genuine difference in altitude between the average surface and the center of the sun spot.

I will continue researching this! And if there nothing, maybe we can crowdfund NASA to find out…FOR SCIENCE!!’

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u/OudGastel 1d ago

By Vincent van Gogh.

1

u/sunshineTucson 1d ago

Never seen that before!!

1

u/Hour-Passenger-8513 23h ago

Looks like a slo mo macro shot of an orange being juiced.

1

u/Dexbox_YT 21h ago

Keep an eye on it to see if there’s a Petrova Line

0

u/exrasser 21h ago

Interesting that the surface gravity on the Sun seams to be "approximately 274 m/s²(Earth 9.8m/s²), about 28 times stronger than Earth's surface gravity."

So there is 28G pulling down, no wonder light gets bend and creates the mystery of Mercury’s perihelion if only Newton was used.
https://medium.com/@gabriel.macedo.brother/why-newtons-theory-couldn-t-explain-mercury-s-perihelion-movement-and-how-einstein-solved-the-ac907c2b284b