Caption: Sunspots and granulation on the Sun.
Sunspots typically have a sunspot umbra and sunspot penumbra as shown in the image.
Sunspots are somewhat colder (about 4000 K) than the surroundings (about 6000 K) and so appear dark. They are regions where magnetic field lines plunge or into the Sun: thus they often come in pairs.
One can see the granulation off the sunspots. The granules are the tops of hot convection cells. They break up in about 10 minutes and have a size scale of about 1000 km (Cox-364; Se-148).
Between the granules, the gas sinks in intergranular lanes.
For more on the solar atmosphere, see Solar atmosphere videos below (local link / general link: solar_atmosphere_videos.html):
See also
Sun keywords
below
(local link /
general link: keywords_sun.html):
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