Sunspot cycle

January 2009
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19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31

Jun 02

The Sun

The sun is the star nearest to us.

It is a giant ball of gases. Many studies have been made of the sun, and it is now kept under constant observation. Some of the most interesting studies have had to do with sunspots. These are dark spots that can be observed on the sun’s surface. The spots are storms that occur in the hot, swirling gases of the sun. In 1826, Heinrich S. Schwabe, a German astronomer, began to count sunspots. He counted them for 43 years - and was rewarded with the discovery of the sunspot cycle. He found that space. This flow is the solar wind. It streams past the earth, changing the shape of the earth’s magnetic field. It also causes the glowing auroras (the northern and the southern lights) when it reaches the top of the earth’s atmosphere.

What makes the sun hot? One old idea was that it burns like a flame. Another was that it gives off heat by contracting slowly. In this century, scientists have shown that the sun’s enormous heat is produced deep in its interior, by nuclear fusion. The process of fusion is the coming-together (union) of atomic nuclei. On the sun, the union is mainly that of the nuclei of hydrogen atoms, joining to form helium nuclei. Heat and light are given off during this process. It is the same process that takes place in the explosion of a hydrogen bomb. Scientists are working to find ways to control the fusion process, so that its heat may be used to generate electricity.

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