Timeline for Could a habitable tidally locked planet have a day and night cycle caused by the eccentricity of its orbit?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
5 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 22, 2017 at 17:05 | comment | added | user | @FreeElk The Sun's 11-year sunspot cycle is about the amount of sunspots, not any individual sunspot. It's also not a perfect 11-year cycle; it just happens to peak roughly every 11 years on average (not that we haven't had a double peak cycle just recently). Keep in mind what sunspots are, namely cooler areas of a star's outer layers. (That's illustrated well in the image Will included in the answer.) All else equal, which as we all know it never is, a larger, relatively cool area would probably remain cool for longer than a smaller one. | |
| May 22, 2017 at 11:43 | comment | added | Willk | What I took away from reading on star spots is that they are not easy to see and their behaviors on other stars is not well known. @KWeiss re "doesn't follow" - not for a scholarly paper but for a work of fiction something real and big can be made bigger when it is not real. | |
| May 22, 2017 at 10:39 | comment | added | FreeElk | I think I heard the sun changes its spots every 11 years or something, would this big sun spot last any longer than that or is this a short term day-night solution? | |
| May 22, 2017 at 5:56 | comment | added | user2727 | "If they can be that big then they can be bigger" - Great post, but this doesn't follow. Maybe this is the biggest a star-spot can reasonably get. It's also relevant that the typical lifetime for a star-spot is only a few years. | |
| May 22, 2017 at 1:33 | history | answered | Willk | CC BY-SA 3.0 |