Sunspots
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Scan day: 07 March 2014 UTC
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Description: Brief description on what sunspots, along with drawings by various astronomers and space analysts.
The Galileo Project | Science | Sunspots The Sun [click for larger image] Sunspots are dark areas of irregular shape on the surface of the Sun. Their short-term and long-term cyclical nature has been established in the past century. Spots are often big enough to be seen with the naked eye. While direct observation of the Sun in a clear sky is painful and dangerous, it is feasible when the Sun is close to the horizon or when it is covered by a thin veil of clouds or mist. Records of naked-eye sunspot observations in China go back to at least 28 BCE. In the West, the record is much more problematical. It is possible that the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras observed a spot in 467 BCE, and it appears that there are a few scattered mentions in the ancient literature as well. However, in the dominant Aristotelian cosmology, the heavens were thought to be perfect and unchanging. A spot that comes and goes on the Sun would mean that there is change in the heavens. Given this theoretical predisposition, the difficulty of observing the Sun, and the cyclic nature of spots, it is little wonder that records of sunspots are almost non-existent in Europe before the seventeenth century. A very large spot seen for no less than eight days in 807 was simply interpreted as a passage of Mercury in front of the Sun. Other mentions of spots seen on the Sun were ignored by the astronomers and philosophers. In 1607
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| Page title: | The Galileo Project | Science | Sunspots |
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| NS | Name Servers: NS1.RICE.EDU 128.42.209.32 NS2.RICE.EDU 128.42.178.32 |
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| Date | activated: 24-Apr-1985 last updated: 17-Aug-2011 expires: 31-Jul-2014 |