The Sunspot Cycle
These two pictures of the Sun show how the number of sunspots changes. The picture on the left was taken near solar max in March 2001. It shows many sunspots. The picture on the right was taken near solar min in January 2005. It doesn't have any sunspots in it at all!
Click on image for full size (62K JPEG)
Images courtesy SOHO/NASA/ESA.
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This graph shows the number of sunspots counted each year for many years. Can you see how the number of sunspots changes? Can you see the 11-year sunspot cycle?
Click on image for full size (8K GIF)
Windows to the Universe original artwork by Randy Russell.
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The number of sunspots seen
on the "surface" of
the Sun changes from year to year. This rise and fall in sunspot counts is a cycle. The length of the cycle is about eleven years on average.
The Sunspot Cycle was discovered in 1843 by the amateur
German astronomer Samuel Heinrich Schwabe.
A peak in the sunspot count is called "solar maximum" (or "solar
max"). The time when few sunspots appear is called a "solar
minimum" (or "solar min"). An example of a recent sunspot cycle
spans the years from the solar min in 1986, when 13 sunspots were
seen,
through the solar max in 1989 when more than 157 sunspots appeared, on to
the next solar
min in 1996 (ten years after the 1986 solar min) when the sunspot count
had fallen back down to fewer than 9.
The length of the sunspot cycle is, on average, around eleven years. But
the length of the cycle does vary. Between 1700 and today, the sunspot
cycle (from one solar min to the next solar min) has varied in length from
as short as nine years to as long as fourteen years.
Sometimes it is hard to get an exact count of number of sunspots on the Sun. Some spots are much bigger than others, some sunspots cross
together at their edges, and many spots appear in groups. In 1848, a Swiss astronomer
named Rudolf Wolf came up with the best way to count sunspots.
The sunspot count using Wolf's formula, now known as the Wolf sunspot
number, is still in use today. Wolf used data from earlier astronomers to reconstruct
sunspot counts as far back as the 1755-1766 cycle, which he dubbed "cycle
1". Since then, subsequent cycles have been numbered consecutively, so
the cycle that began with the 1996 solar minimum is cycle 23.
The Sun is usually very active when sunspot
counts are high. Sunspots show us where the Sun's
magnetic field might be "twisted up" enough to cause solar
flares and coronal mass ejections. The Sun gives off more radiation than
usual during solar max, and this extra energy changes the uppermost
layers of Earth's atmosphere.
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Sunspots
The Solar Cycle
History of Sunspot Observations
Activity: Graphing Sunspot Cycles
Movie: Magnetic Field Lines Tangle as Sun Rotates
Movie: Rotating Sun with Sunspots
Movie: Dark Days Ahead for the Sun (RealVideo courtesy of the National Science Foundation)
Picture: Solar Corona at Solar Max and Solar Min
Picture: X-ray Image of the Sun at Solar Max and Solar Min
Sunspot Jigsaw Puzzle
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