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Hi Richard, The link below goes to a web page that describes how the latitude of sunspot occurence varies with the cycle. It describes how sunspots emerge closer to the poles during the beginning of the cycle, but usually within a belt between -35 and 35 degrees, leading to the butterfly diagram. Several...

As recently as last week, there were two new cycle sunspots. One of them however, numbered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) as Active Region (AR) 11006, lasted for only one day. You can expect old cycle sunspots to continue to appear for a while; it is perfectly normal for the...

The sun's spots are coming back. We know the new ones are from the new cycle because of the polarity of the magnetic field. Most sunspots are associated with magnetic loops which have in/out or out/in polarity, with the polarity different in the different hemispheres. For the new sunspot cycle, the...