Question

Describe the sunspot cycle.

Answer 1

The recurring increase and decrease in the number of sunspots over a period averaging about eleven years.

Answer 2

Answer:

    Sunspots can be of various sizes. Some are very small and barely noticeable while others may be very large. Sunspots with a diameter of 50,000 kilometers have already been detected. In addition, studies on the sun's magnetic field have revealed that sunspots are regions of intense magnetic field. In some of them there were magnetic field intensities about 1,000 times higher than those normally detected in the sun.

    Sunspots are almost always present in the Sun. However, their continued observation showed astronomers that there was a cycle of 11.1 years, beginning, middle and end, in their formation process. It was Johann Rudolf Wolf (1816-1893), sunspots expert and historian of astronomy, who confirmed in 1848 that there was a cycle in the number of sunspots. It was also he who most precisely determined the duration of this cycle.

    The solar cycle, that is, the cyclical variation every eleven years observed in solar activity, has times of maximum and minimum of ACTIVITY. When the sun is going through the minimum of this cycle, the so-called “solar minimum”, the number of spots on its surface is practically zero. Theoretically, after five and a half years the sun reaches its peak of activity, the "maximum solar", and on its surface we can see up to 100 sunspots. In fact, the maximum and minimum periods of the solar cycle are not exactly symmetrical, so one of them may eventually last longer than the other.