AS102 Study Guide - Final Guide: Butterfly Diagram
Document Summary
If one examines the intensity and number of sunspots over a long timeframe we observe a definite cycle between a high level of sunspot activity and a very low level. This activity has been recorded pretty much since galileo"s time and shows a pretty definite 11-year cycle of varying sunspot occurrences. The graph shown here demonstrates this over a. 60-year period from 1950-2010, where there are five peaks starting at about 1957 and ending around 2001, a 44-year span which miraculously works out to an average 11 years between peaks. If we look at the location of the spots during a cycle we see that at the start of a cycle the spots appear at higher latitudes (north and south). As the cycle progresses the spots appear closer to the sun"s equator before petering out. The next cycle begins a few months later.
