Sun
ID: 11211
SDO Observes Fast-Growing Sunspot
Released on February 22, 2013
As magnetic fields on the sun rearrange and realign, dark spots known as sunspots can appear on its surface. Over the course of Feb. 19-20, 2013, scientists watched a giant sunspot form in under 48 hours. It has grown to over six Earth diameters across but its full extent is hard to judge since the spot lies on a sphere not a flat disk.The spot quickly evolved into what's called a delta region, in which the lighter areas around the sunspot, the penumbra, exhibit magnetic fields that point in the opposite direction of those fields in the center, dark area. This is a fairly unstable configuration that scientists know can lead to eruptions of radiation on the sun called solar flares.
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Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/SDO
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Mission:
SDO
Data Used:
SDO/HMI/Continuum also referred to as: SDO Continuum
SDO/HMI/Magnetogram also referred to as: SDO Magnetogram
Data Compilation
SDO/AIA/304 Filter also referred to as: AIA 304
JOINT SCIENCE OPERATIONS CENTER
SDO/AIA/171 Filter also referred to as: AIA 171
JOINT SCIENCE OPERATIONS CENTER
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.
This item is part of this series:
Heliophysics Breaking News
Goddard TV Tape:
G2013-021 -- 2013 Heliophysics Breaking News
Keywords:
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Sun-earth Interactions
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Sun-earth Interactions >> Solar Activity >> Solar Ultraviolet
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Sun-earth Interactions >> Solar Activity >> Sunspots
SVS >> Space Weather
SVS >> SDO
SVS >> Solar Dynamics Observatory
SVS >> Heliophysics
SVS >> Corona
NASA Science >> Sun
SVS >> Visible Light Imaging
SVS >> Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging
SVS >> EUV Imaging
GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation:
Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0