A little bit about sunspots

Theres lots of features of the Sun, and of stars, but sunspots are really quite exciting. Here's a little blurb I wrote about sunspots:

Sunspots are temporary dark, cooler blotches consisting of dark (called the umbra) surrounded by a lighter penumbra, both of which are silhouetted against the brighter photosphere. Sunspots are typically the size of the Earth. They are caused by intense magnetic activity which inhibits convection, therefore forming areas of reduced surface temperature. Sunspots are the visual counterparts of magnetic flux tubes in the Sun's convection zone that get wound up by the differential rotation of the Sun. If the stress on the tube reaches a certain limit they puncture the Earth's surface and convection is inhibited at the puncture points, and the energy flux from the Sun's interior decreases, and with it, the surface temperature.

At the moment we are on a realllllly long sunspot minimum. These solar cycles, which determine how often and how many sunspots we see, are regular at abou 11 year intervals. But at the moment, we are waiting to come out of a long minimum. Hopefully we will see some more sunspots during the duration of the project! Here's a link to a good article:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/11jul_solarcycleupdate/