Can there be a star that is made of the same matter of our sun spots? What would the illumination be like?
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5$\begingroup$ Can a mountain range be made of valleys? $\endgroup$– PhilippCommented Jul 13 at 19:40
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2 Answers
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A sunspot is made of the same matter as the rest of the sun. The sun is a mixture of hydrogen and helium (and a trace of other elements) A sunspot is exactly the same mix. The only difference is that a sunspot is cooler: 3500-4500 degrees, compared to about 6000 for the rest of the sun. The cooling is a result of magnetic fields, not a different type of matter. Small stars with a surface temperature of 3500-4000 degrees are red-orange and much dimmer than the sun.
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1$\begingroup$ Your last sentence could be more explicit: IIUC, such a cool star would look everywhere like our sun spots, which would define the way it illuminates its surrounding: With light of a color temperature of 3500-400K, and correspondingly lower intensity, and since it's probably smaller, lower overall output. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 11 at 15:02
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1$\begingroup$ My assumption, that could be wrong, is that it's unlikely/impossible for sunspot-causing magnetic fields to cover the entire surface of a star. Such a star would need to have a very strong magnetic monopole, which doesn't seem plausible from what I can tell. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 11 at 18:30
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4$\begingroup$ @TheGuywithTheHat Yeah, but you can have a star that's just generally cooler. It wouldn't be a sunspot per se but that's the point, there's nothing special about a sunspot, it's just a cool spot on the surface. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 11 at 18:40
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2$\begingroup$ (1) If one counts the spot together with its surroundings, it is actually brighter than a spotless surface. The whole Sun is somewhat brighter when it has spots. (2) Stars with much more and bigger spots do exist. $\endgroup$– fraxinusCommented Jul 11 at 20:10
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A sunspot is made out of the same stuff as the rest of the sun, it's just a relatively cool spot. Because it's cooler, it puts out less and redder light, but it's only dark in comparison to the rest of the sun's disc. Sunspots actually still put out a huge amount of light.
A star can't be made entirely out of sunspots as such, because you can't have those magnetic effects everywhere at once, but you can have a star that's just sunspot-temperature all over. Those definitely do exist. They have a more red spectrum than our sun does, so something like Betelgeuse would be a good example. Of course, such a star would most likely have sunspots of its own that are even cooler and dimmer.
