beginner going nowhere

[ALecras234]

hi im ash from north wales. im disabled and ive suffered head injury so i find it hard to understand things, it takes a while. i became interested in astronomy 9 years ago and i still dont know much about it. i bought a book called teach yourself astronomy by patrick moore, its a good book, it has a page called things to remember at the end of each chapter where he lists points from that chapter which i try to memorize. im reading a chapter about the sun and it talks about who first observed the sun then it goes on to sunspots. it says, the sun does have a magnetic field, the lines of force run from one magnetic pole to the other, not very far below the surface. When the lines break through to the surface they temporarily cool it, and a sunspot results.

what does this mean? it takes me a long time to understand something and i find it easier to understand something when its a picture. is it vertical lines running through a circle, is that the magnetic field, what are magnetic poles?

[KevG]

Hi Ash, your not alone, I have trouble understanding this subject most of the time, although there is a nice little schematic that graphically describes the suns magnetic field lines, hope this helps

[the_laughing_crow]

Hi Ash and welcome to the forum!

The sun has the most complex magnetic field in the solar system which is what causes things like sun spots.

Personally I find the best pictorial aid for understanding magnetic fields to be imagining the planet as behaving exactly like a large magnet. In its simplest form the suns magnetic field is much like the magnetic field which is present on earth. And both the magnetic field on the sun and on the earth can be visualised as a large magnet like below.

The image with the bar magnet show what the lines of force look like above the surface of the sun. Below the surface the lines look pretty much the same and run from one end of the magnet to the other. A magnetic pole is just another way of saying "one end of the magnet".

Unlike the earth the suns magnetic field can get very twisted and distorted over many years which is what leads to sun spots.... and I'll be honest I have great difficulty visualising the magnetic field lines that lead to sun spots. I guess it would kinda look like a ball of string that had been all knotted with loops of string comming out here and there in no particular order... basically a big mess.

[Moonshane]

this is great

someone asked me what a sunspot was the other day and I had no idea - I do now!

[xboxdevil]

Hi Ash, a warm welcome to the forum, you need no understanding to appreciate the beauty of the heavens. (although it helps sometimes) :-) I'm a beginner too and there's a wealth of information here, so keep going and enjoy it.

[ollypenrice]

Hi Ash,

A magnet has two poles, one at each end. Lines of magnetic force connect the poles together. The sun is like a giant magnet so lines of magnetic force run from top to bottom just under the surface.

Olly

[TheThing]

Hi Ash and welcome.

You've done me a big favour. I've learnt something new by reading this thread, so thanks for asking your question.

Always remeber, the only stupid question is the one that never gets asked!

Cheers,

[runoffshed]

Excellent thread - thanks, Ash.

I have never been able to visualise the magnetic field/sunspot connection but the schematics in this thread make it very clear...excellent.

John

[Doug]

Hi Ash

A warm welcome to SGL

Doug

Essex

[optical thrombosis]

Ash, you are not alone in finding astronomy overwhelming. We all start somewhere.

I would like to recommend another book that I think you will find easy to understand and will help you identify main objects in the night sky with the help of lots of pictures. It is called "Turn Left At Orion" by Guy Consolmagno & Dan Davis. You can buy it from Amazon.

[ALecras234]

Hi Ash, your not alone, I have trouble understanding this subject most of the time, although there is a nice little schematic that graphically describes the suns magnetic field lines, hope this helps

thanks for the diagram i understand that. i will carry on reading about the sun, ive got to abit about sporers law, to do with latitudes of sunspots. cheers