Differential Rotation of the Sun

Page 2 - Seeking answers about space? Join the Space community: the premier source of space exploration, innovation, and astronomy news, chronicling (and celebrating) humanity's ongoing expansion across the final frontier.
It’s interesting how mass alone determines everything. Ignoring change due to age, only metals can make any slight difference.

Next, luminosity is, apparently, the driver to the other variables (eg temp.). One would think luminosity would be the tail of the dog, but it seems it’s not.

Opacity (mentioned earlier by Bill) is also a critical term.
 
Yes, metals are important to the location of the tachocline. They have nuclei with more than two protons. They are able to pull hard enough on an electron to get it into a lower orbital. Once there it can be raised to a higher orbital thus capturing a photon. This is what makes opacity. Opacity holds the heat in at lower layers thus increasing the temperature gradient and allowing for convection.
 
Read the Wikipedia article: Sunspot. No mention of sunspot pairs, I guess it’s my bad. But, it seems to agree that the N and S groups will tend to be in similar latitudes, starting high at the beginning of the cycle and moves toward the equator over time (Terra’s butterfly chart).

But, the sunspot cycle seems to really affect the long-term climate here, hence the Maunder Minimum of the late 18th century.
 

Latest posts