sunspots

n. relatively cool region which appears as a dark spot on the sun; summer resort (Slang)

A sunspot is a region on the Sun's surface (photosphere) that is marked by a lower temperature than its surroundings and has intense magnetic activity, which inhibits convection, forming areas of low surface temperature. Although they are blindingly bright at temperatures of roughly 4000-4500 K, the contrast with the surrounding material at about 5800 K leaves them clearly visible as dark spots. If they were isolated from the surrounding photosphere they would be brighter than an  electric arc. A minimum in the eleven-year sunspot cycle is predicted for 2007 [1]. Sunspots are often related to intense magnetic activity such as coronal loops and reconnection. Most solar flares and coronal mass ejections originate in magnetically active regions around sunspot groupings. Similar phenomena observed on stars other than the Sun are commonly called starspots.
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Noun
1. a cooler darker spot appearing periodically on the sun's photosphere; associated with a strong magnetic field
(synonym) macula
(hypernym) topographic point, place, spot

Sunspots Astronomers describe the spots appearing upon the photosphere of the sun as irregularly ring-shaped penumbra enclosing a darker central umbra. Although the umbra looks black in comparison with the bright surrounding photosphere, it is actually quite brilliant. The spots have no permanence, either in time or shape: they often arise from combinations of contiguous smaller spots, or from no apparent cause on the sun's face, within a short period (often about a day). Bridges may form across a spot and thus give shape to two spots. All spots are carried across the sun's body by the sun's rotation, very few being found near the equator nor at 45 or more degrees from the equator.
In theosophy the spots are due to the diastolic and systolic movements of the sun -- which is the heart as well as the brain of the solar system -- in its rhythmic pulsations, by which the life forces of the system are circulated in a period roughly ranging from ten to twelve years, and usually given as being eleven years -- the sunspot cycle of astronomy. "Thus, there is a regular circulation of the vital fluid throughout our system, of which the Sun is the heart -- the same as the circulation of the blood in the human body -- during the manvantaric solar period, or life; the Sun contracting as rhythmically at every return of it, as the human heart does. Only, instead of performing the round in a second or so, it takes the solar blood ten of its years, and a whole year to pass through its auricles and ventricles before it washes the lungs and passes thence to the great veins and arteries of the system.
to be continue "Sunspots2 "

1. Notional cause of an odd error. "Why did the program suddenly turn the screen blue?" "Sunspots, I guess."
2. Also the cause of bit rot - from the myth that sunspots will increase cosmic rays, which can flip single bits in memory. See also phase of the moon.
[Jargon File]