In case your ego needs adjustment

...an ordinary sunspot taken at the National Solar Observatory,
located in the village of Sunspot, New Mexico and released back in 1998.


Here is a letter about sunspots from Neil deGrasse Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History. It appeared on a list-serv called Star-Struck to which I subscribe and which I always enjoy. Info on how you can subscribe too appears at the end. It's free.



Dear Star Struck,

As you may know, the Sun's surface is an active place. Not only does
the Sun's equator complete one turn in less time that the regions
near the poles, but huge blobs of gas rise and fall like a boiling
liquid on a stove.

Meanwhile the Sun's powerful magnetic field get trapped within this
electrically charged (ionized) gas, as it gets twisted and turned,
and stretched and stressed. This turbulent activity drives a
fascinating ensemble of features that include solar flares,
prominences, and ever-present sunspots -- regions of the Sun's
surface that are slightly cooler than the surrounding areas, leaving
them to appear darker by contrast.

Advances in precision imaging, using telescope optics that compensate for the blurring effects of Earth's atmosphere, have led to images such as the one above

That image is expanded from its most recent appearance on the
"Astronomy Picture of the Day" website
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051106.html

For reference, and in case your ego needs adjustment, our 8,000-mile diameter Earth would just barely cover the inner dark area of the spot, and the Sun itself would be about forty-feet wide.

As always, keep looking up.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

*************************
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Department of Astrophysics
& Director, Hayden Planetarium
American Museum of Natural History
Central Park West at 79th Street
New York, NY 10024

http://research.amnh.org/users/tyson


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