The dotted sun rises in New York City in a wonderful sky observation picture.
Amateur astronomer Alexander Krivenshev, president of WorldTimeZone.com, photographed the sun over the Big Apple on Saturday morning (November 28). The close-up image he captured appears very clearly Sunspot Known as AR2786 and its younger cousin, AR2785.
Krivenyshev took pictures with the Canon EOS7D, with a solar filter attached close by. caution: Do not attempt to get shots like this unless you also have a solar filter. Looking directly at the sunWith the naked eye or through tools such as cameras or telescopes, they can cause serious and permanent eye damage, including blindness.
Related: How to observe the sun safely (infographic)
AR2786 and AR2785 It was rotated for show shortly before Thanksgiving. AR2786 is multiple times wider than Earth.
Sunspots are temporary dark spots that are much cooler than the rest of the sun’s surface – around 6,500 degrees Fahrenheit (3,600 degrees Celsius), compared to 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5,500 degrees Celsius).
Sunspots occur where the solar magnetic fields are particularly strong, and they act as launch pads for flares and explosions of the superheated plasma known as Coronal mass ejection. For centuries, scientists have been computing sunspots as a way to measure solar activity.
This activity wanes and wanes over an 11-year cycle. The last of them, Solar Cycle 25, started in December 2019 and is expected to be fairly quiet, like Solar Cycle 24. But the sun is now showing, at least a little bit: On Sunday (November 29), our star It unleashed its strongest glow In more than three years.
Mike Wall is the author ofAbroad“(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book on the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
