Sun Spots is an oil painting by Debra Keirce. The art measures 14″ x 11″ with the frame measuring 16″ x 13". ******************************************************************************************* My daughter has always been intrigued by astronomy. We have visited many a planetarium together. I love how much there is to still learn about the suns and moons and planets in our universe. Our sun, which we literally could not live without, is one such mystery. Even before 800 BC, astronomers in China were recording sun spot activity in their journals. Now, we know that these are areas where the magnetic field is about 2,500 times stronger than what we experience here on earth. The middle of a sunspot is the umbra, and the surrounding area is called the penumbra. This is the same terminology we artists use to describe the morphology of cast shadows in our paintings and drawings. The sun's sunspot umbra is around 4,000 degrees Kelvin while the penumbra is about 5,700 degrees Kelvin. This means a single sunspot would shine brighter than a full moon.
