Why are there black patches on the suns surface?

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Why are there black patches on the suns surface?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

There aren’t. Or at least it depends on what you mean by “black”.

Sunspots are cooler spots on the Sun’s surface. Since the Sun glows because of the heat of its material, those regions glow much less than the surrounding parts of the Sun. That makes them appear black *relative to the rest of the Sun*, but they’d still be dazzlingly bright if you were “standing” on them (not that you can stand on gas, but you know what I mean).

As for why sunspots are a thing: they’re not fully understood, but they’re believed to be manifestations of the Sun’s magnetic field. Since the “gas” in the sun is actually electrically-conductive plasma, it flows according to both electromagnetism and fluid dynamics, which makes the magnetic field of the Sun visible in its flow.

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