2.8K views · 94 reactions | The Sun: Abundant Sunspot Activity |...

This is the biggest sunspot we’ve seen in almost a decade! 🤩☀️ Sunspots are cooler, darker areas on the solar surface where the Sun’s magnetic field gets especially intense, often leading to explosive solar eruptions. This sunspot was so big that nearly 14 Earths could fit inside it! The eruptions from this sunspot resulted in the historic May 2024 geomagnetic storms, where the aurora borealis, or northern lights, were seen as far south as the Florida Keys. NASA’s Illuminate: Out-of-this-world

• Sunspot Light-Bridges • A Bridge from the Photosphere to the Corona? Light-bridges are lanes of bright material that divide the umbra in a sunspot. They are often observed during the break-up of sunspots and therefore can represent the re-establishment of convection which is normally inhibited by the sunspot's strong magnetic field. Their increased brightness suggests a higher plasma temperature than in the surrounding umbra, and they have been shown to display significantly enhanced chromosph