Huge sigh of relief as sunspot appears

TechTrack - Dr Kelvin Kemm

A sunspot has just appeared on the sun and many people are breathing a sigh of relief. Why?

Well firstly, what is a sunspot? A sunspot is actually a huge magnetic storm on the sun, which, when one looks at the sun, appears as a darker spot on the bright surface.

Do not look at the sun with binoculars or a telescope, as doing that will probably destroy your eye – there are ways of projecting the sun's image.

The sun has a well-known 11-year cycle, during which it moves from Solar Max to Solar Min; this means from a state of many sunspots, or solar storms, to few.

Sunspot data has been collected since 1749, and 100 or more ‘spots' can occur during a single month of the maximum portion of the cycle.

We have just been through Solar Min, and the return of sunspots is late. During the last few months, there have been virtually no spots, and a month with no spots at all is very rare.

It has been found that there is a direct correlation between the number of sunspots and global warming, and, consequently, the state of the climate.