how do sunspots form?
599806
I like the guy who quoted but had no idea what he quoted.  :-)\n\nWhat it means is the sun has a very stong magnetic field, much stronger than the earth's. But where the earth rotates as a solid body, the sun does not. Some parts rotate at different speeds. The magnetic lines get wound up --- like a rubber band. Sunspots are where these magnetic lines break through. They come in pairs. If you could visit the surface of the sun with a compass, one of the pair would appear as a north pole while the other attracted the south indicator of your compass.\n\nThe magnetic field is strong enough to change the flow of material on the sun. The outer third of the sun transfers heat by convection. It is similar to a pot of boiling water on your stove top. If you see a closeup of the surface in Hydrogen alpha light, you will see granules. Those are like giant cells bubbling up --- just like the boiling water on your stove --- but on a much larger scale.\n\nThe heat is not able to "boil" up around the magnetic field. So less heat is carred up to that area. Because it is not as hot as the surrounding area, it appears darker. It is still very bright, but it appears dark by contrast with the hotter areas surrounding it. That dark area is the sunspot we see.\n\nThey last from a few days to several weeks. At times the magnetic field forms a bubble which breaks out and sends a "coronal mass ejection" into space. If it is aimed at earth, we have a large aurora display.\n\nIf you enjoy astronomy, try \nhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/lunar-observing\n\nChuck
375797
the sun doest not use oxygen. it actually follows a method called nuclear fusion, whereby two hydrogen atoms react to form a helium atom. with this, very large amounts of heat and light are produced
837108
The sun "burns" on the concept of nuclear fussion, where hydrogen is converted to helium. Once all hydrogen has been converted it then produces lithium and all other elements in the periodic table until iron.\n\nThis process creates energy and is what you are referring to as "burning".\n\nNuclear fussion is a nuclear reaction. Processes like creating a fire are chemical reactions involing oxygen
623455
The most basic stable physical shapes of revolving and rotating masses is spherical-note not a perfect sphere, because the shape tends to be flatted on the ends. Hence even the sun bulges along its equator and is flattened at the poles, as is the earth-this happens because of centrifugal forces caused due to rotation which throw material outwards, while gravity holds it and pulls it inwards.\n   \nThere must also be enough  mass too to generate enough gravitational force so that a spherical shape is formed. Astronomical bodies which are only a few kilometres across are irregularly shaped-eg. Ceres, an asteroid
222779
The Sun sudden bursts of energy contains Gamma rays and X-rays, plus energized particles (protons and electrons). This forms the Solar wind. Flare activity picks up as sunspots increase.\n\nhttp://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/sun-ez.html
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Typically, an active region will grow to its maximum extent in about 10 days and may persist for several months, declining slowly as its underlying magnetic fields dissipate. The sunspots that form within an active region usually disappear within 2–4 weeks.
279404
As with all stars, the sun is producing energy by nuclear fusion.  The process involves several steps, but it boils down to combining the nuclei of 4 (four) hydrogen atoms (basically 4 protons) to form a single nucleus of helium (2 protons and 2 neutrons bound together).  Several other particles come out--a couple of positrons (like electrons, but with positive charge), a couple of neutrinos (tinier than electrons and not charged), and gamma rays (very high-energy radiation).  The positrons almost immediatley react with electrons and annihilate (like Star Trek--real matter/anti-matter reaction) to form additional gamma rays.  The energy of the gamma rays are eventually absorbed a few thousand miles below the sun's surface, heating the gas there and causing it to "boil".  At the sun's surface, this "boiling gas" releases it's energy like bubbles in the form of radiation of all different energies, mostly in the visible range, producing the light (and heat and UV for suntans and more) that travels through space to the Earth and beyond.
60269
Go to http://www.halos.com/videos.htm and see free streaming video and you will see how mountains are formed.
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When the Sun has Sunspots you can see that they revolve around the Sun.\n\nIt basically rotates similar to how the planets rotate.\n\nRotate not orbit.
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Do you mean why? or how?\nWhy:\nBecuase whne it was formed, it was made from gasses and matter that was spinning around the sun. As it formed into a ball, it continued to spin as it was sucked into a big mass.\n\nHow:\nTo the east at about 1000 mph at the equator, 700 mph at New York
84417
The Sun is currently about 5 billion years old, "burning" hydrogen by fusing hydrogen into helium. The fusion only works in the core, where the temperature and pressure is high enough.\n\nWhen the hydrogen is used up the Sun will begin to contract. Eventually the core will become hot enough that helium will start to fuse. During this time the outer layers of the Sun will expand. This is the Red Giant phase.\n\nFairly soon after this (astronomically speaking) the Sun will run out of helium. Again the sun will contract, but this time not enough to heat the core for helium to burn (helium burning happens in massive stars). \n\nAt this stage the Sun will continually contract, glowing fainter and fainter with energy derived from the collapse and not fusion, until the remnant Sun is compressed so much that it is about the size of the Moon. At the begining of this collapse more gas is lost from the outer layers of the Sun, forming what is known as a "Planetary Nebulae," a shell of gas that has nothing to do with planets.\n\nThe white dwarf stage is very, very long. The Sun will slowly fade until it is barely radiating and is a cold, bare "black dwarf."  The Sun will NOT turn into a black hole.\n\n\nSo the answer is:\n--The Sun is about 5 billion years old.\n--The Red Giant phase will occur in about 5 billion years\n--Sun as a White dwarf - starting about 5 billion from now, and ending about 10 or 15 billion years from now.\n--Sun as a cold, black dwarf - as long as the Sun doesn't crash into anything, this stage may last for hundreds of billions of years
42472
The answer to this questions lies in what the sun is made out of and how that reacts to itself.  The sun is plasma, as are most of the stars.  The mass of the sun is so great that it possesses tremendous gravitational force.  This causes all the pasma to be pulled toward the center of the sun.  There is too much plasma there for it all to be at the center of the sun, so it gets positioned around the center in the shape of a ball.  Take a magnet for example.  If you place a magnet in the middle of a bunch of iron filings, the filings will all attempt to reach the magnet.  They will not all be able to do so, so the rest will be distributed around the middle in a ball.  This is what happens in the sun, just like the earth, the moon, and all other celestial bodies.  In the earth, the sand and dirk particles are pulled toward the center and are thus arranged in a ball around the middle of the earth because of gravity.\nThe sun is not a perfect ball, but then, neither is the earth, yet it looks like one from the moon's perspective.  The reason for this is also due to distance.  The sun is approximately 93,000,000 miles away.  It looks about 5 cm in diameter from earth.  It is actually 1,390,000 KM in diameter.  This causes the sun to look only about .000000003597th of it's size.  If the sun happens to have a bump opn one size that it oh, let's say, 100,000 KM in diameter, it would only appear to be 3 millimeters in diameter from earth.  There is one other thing that keeps us from noticing it.  If I were to shine a spotlight right in your eyes, there would be no way for you to tell if the spotlight was actually a perfect circle or slightly oval.  If you don't believe me, just try it sometime.  That is what it is like, looking at the sun.  The sun is the spotlight and we are in it's direct beam during the day, which happens to be the only time we can observe it.  For all these reasons, the sun appears to be a ball.
64889
The sunspot cycle is an eleven year period when the number of sunspots, a dark area of magnetic fluctuation and relatively lower temperature, appearing on the surface of the sun goes from its maximum number to a minimum number, sometimes as low as zero sunspots.  We are currently at the solar minimum of the sunspot cycle.  For the month of February, for 21 of the 28 days, there were no sunspots on the sun.
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The Sun is the most prominent feature in our solar system. It is the largest object and contains approximately 98% of the total solar system mass. One hundred and nine Earths would be required to fit across the Sun's disk, and its interior could hold over 1.3 million Earths. The Sun's outer visible layer is called the photosphere and has a temperature of 6,000°C (11,000°F). This layer has a mottled appearance due to the turbulent eruptions of energy at the surface. \nSolar energy is created deep within the core of the Sun. It is here that the temperature (15,000,000° C; 27,000,000° F) and pressure (340 billion times Earth's air pressure at sea level) is so intense that nuclear reactions take place. This reaction causes four protons or hydrogen nuclei to fuse together to form one alpha particle or helium nucleus. The alpha particle is about .7 percent less massive than the four protons. The difference in mass is expelled as energy and is carried to the surface of the Sun, through a process known as convection, where it is released as light and heat. Energy generated in the Sun's core takes a million years to reach its surface. Every second 700 million tons of hydrogen are converted into helium ashes. In the process 5 million tons of pure energy is released; therefore, as time goes on the Sun is becoming lighter. \n\n \n\nThe chromosphere is above the photosphere. Solar energy passes through this region on its way out from the center of the Sun. Faculae and flares arise in the chromosphere. Faculae are bright luminous hydrogen clouds which form above regions where sunspots are about to form. Flares are bright filaments of hot gas emerging from sunspot regions. Sunspots are dark depressions on the photosphere with a typical temperature of 4,000°C (7,000°F). \n\nThe corona is the outer part of the Sun's atmosphere. It is in this region that prominences appears. Prominences are immense clouds of glowing gas that erupt from the upper chromosphere. The outer region of the corona stretches far into space and consists of particles traveling slowly away from the Sun. The corona can only be seen during total solar eclipses. (See Solar Eclipse Image). \n\nThe Sun appears to have been active for 4.6 billion years and has enough fuel to go on for another five billion years or so. At the end of its life, the Sun will start to fuse helium into heavier elements and begin to swell up, ultimately growing so large that it will swallow the Earth. After a billion years as a red giant, it will suddenly collapse into a white dwarf -- the final end product of a star like ours. It may take a trillion years to cool off completely. \n\n\nSun Statistics \nMass (kg) 1.989e+30 \nMass (Earth = 1) 332,830 \nEquatorial radius (km) 695,000 \nEquatorial radius (Earth = 1) 108.97 \nMean density (gm/cm^3) 1.410 \nRotational period (days) 25-36* \nEscape velocity (km/sec) 618.02 \nLuminosity (ergs/sec) 3.827e33 \nMagnitude (Vo) -26.8 \nMean surface temperature 6,000°C \nAge (billion years) 4.5 \nPrincipal chemistry \nHydrogen\nHelium\nOxygen \nCarbon\nNitrogen\nNeon\nIron\nSilicon\nMagnesium\nSulfur\nAll others  \n92.1%\n7.8%\n0.061%\n0.030%\n0.0084%\n0.0076%\n0.0037%\n0.0031%\n0.0024%\n0.0015%\n0.0015% \n\n* The Sun's period of rotation at the surface varies from approximately 25 days at the equator to 36 days at the poles. Deep down, below the convective zone, everything appears to rotate with a period of 27 days. \n\n\nEclipse & Sun Movies\n\nSOHO - Halo Mass Ejection Event. \nSOHO - Halo Mass Ejection Event - Zoomed Out. \nSOHO - Explosive Coronal Mass Ejections from the Sun. \nSOHO-6 Comet at 2-6 solar radii from the Sun. \nSolar Magnetic Field Map \nMan's Fascination of the Sun. \nThe Sun's interior, photosphere, and corona. \nSun's magnetic field, prominences, solar wind, aurora. \nCorona Animation of Solar Prominences. \n1993-1994 animation of the Sun as seen in soft x-rays. \n1994 Eclipse. \nA QuickTime movie (15
470292
When sun shines on water, it warms it up and since heat is lighter, the water kinda floats up into the air. That's called evaporating. Then when it's high in the sky, many little water droplets come together and from clouds. When there's too many water droplets, the cloud becomes to watery and it rains. Then it starts all over again.
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You can also get weird phenomenons in the desert or other high-temperature places. Pockets of air of different rotation or heat can reflect light in such a manner that objects hangs upside down in the air instead of being behind a hill for example.\n\nNot that I've ever heard of complete suns being visible. The ice-particles can refract into bi-solars, yes, but as I recall you only see parts of the sun on each side of it. Not complete circular "suns".
618960
It was formed from the ring of dust and debris orbiting the sun when the sun gained enough mass to start the fusion process.  It was formed in the same way and at the same time as all the other planets.