Image taken by the NTU telescope

Finally the Sun has woken from its slumber. Over the past few months the Sun has been very quiet indeed and only occasional small sunspots have been visible. In the last few days however, we have seen the birth of a beautiful new sunspot, which is developing into a large example of its kind.

Sunspots are regions of the Sun that are cooler and therefore darker than their surroundings; they are caused by magnetic fields on the Sun. Note how this sunspot is actually made up of a group of sunspots.

The above image was obtained on 6 July 2009 at 12:14 UT, by the NTU observatory solar sunscope.

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