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A dotted sun shines over New York City in a stunning skywatcher photo.
Amateur astronomer Alexander Krivenyshev, president of WorldTimeZone.com, photographed the sun over the Big Apple on Saturday morning (November 28). A close-up image he captured clearly shows a large sunspot known as AR2786 and its smaller cousin, AR2785.
Krivenyshev took the photos using a Canon EOS7D camera, with a sunscreen mounted for the foreground. Attention: Don’t try to get such shots unless you also have a sunscreen. Looking directly at the sun, with the naked eye or through tools such as cameras or telescopes, can cause serious and permanent eye damage, including blindness.
Related: How to observe the sun safely (infographic)
AR2786 and AR2785 appeared just before Thanksgiving. AR2786 is several times larger than Earth.
Sunspots are temporary dark spots that are significantly colder than the rest of the solar surface – around 6,500 degrees Fahrenheit (3,600 degrees Celsius), compared to 10,000 degrees F (5,500 C).
Sunspots occur where solar magnetic fields are particularly strong and serve as launch pads for superhot plasma rockets and eruptions known as coronal mass ejections. For centuries, scientists have considered sunspots as a way to measure solar activity.
That activity rises and falls over an 11-year cycle. The last one, solar cycle 25, started in December 2019 and should be quiet enough, as was solar cycle 24. But the sun is now acting, at least a little bit: Sunday (November 29), our star has fired its most powerful glow in more than three years.
Mike Wall is the author of “Out there“(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
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