On January 4, 2008, the new sunspot—about the width of the Earth, but small by Sun standards—appeared in the Sun’s Northern Hemisphere, with its north magnetic pole (red area) pointing to the right and its south magnetic pole (blue) pointing to the left.
This pair of images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft shows sunspots and ultraviolet light emitted by the Sun on April 29, 2009.
Our Sun experienced fewer sunspots in 2008 than it had since the 1957 launch of Sputnik. As of Sun-Earth Day on March 20, 2009, the Sun was continuing its quiet pattern.