The National Solar Observatory predicted a large sunspot cluster would emerge in time for the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. That cluster did indeed emerge, and the observatory got a great image in h-alpha of the sunspots just peeking around the limb of the Sun. You can see the image on our blog at DailySpace.org.

Sunspots are nothing new; however, we are just starting to move out of a solar minimum, which means those dark spots have been few and far between, if not altogether nonexistent. And the real story here is not so much the what but the how.

Sunspots occur when the magnetic field lines of the Sun get tangled up, like a knot of spaghetti noodles. Different latitudes of the Sun rotate and circulate at different velocities, causing the magnetic fields to drag against each other and twist together. The spots are cooler than the surrounding surface, which causes their dark appearance. And we are definitely interested in those spots because when the magnetic fields snap and realign, there is usually a solar flare. The bigger the grouping of sunspots, the greater the potential for a solar flare and the larger the possible flare could be.

A solar flare releases massive amounts of radiation into space, and that radiation can cause issues with radar communication here on Earth. Of even greater concern is the possibility of a coronal mass ejection, or CME, which has the potential to disrupt power grids and satellites.

So scientists have been working diligently to understand solar cycles and sunspots to keep us forewarned. And this recent grouping was predicted five days in advance of coming around the limb of the Sun using helioseismology. Per the release: [T]he team has been “listening” to changing sound waves from the Sun’s interior which beckon the arrival of the large feature. Recent changes in these sound waves pointed to the imminent appearance of a new sunspot group which we can now see from Earth near the eastern solar limb.

The process works similarly to how we listen to sound waves traveling through the Earth’s interior to determine the planet’s structure. The release goes on to explain: Helioseismology can highlight structures on the Sun that cannot yet be seen from Earth. Millions of sound frequencies bounce freely throughout the Sun’s interior, like a bell. Regions of strong magnetic fields perturb these sound waves, thus a change in wave signal measurements indicates that sunspots may be present.

The team predicted the sunspot grouping on November 18 and imaged it on November 24. That is a decent amount of lead time for a potential threat to our infrastructure when we previously had 15-18 hours of warning for a fast-moving CME, after the fact.

Also, if you have pictures of these sunspots, we will share them out on our social media with your credit. We can be found at CosmoQuestX on both Twitter and Instagram, so feel free to tag us.

More Information

NSO press release