Friederich Wilhelm Gustav Spörer (23 October 1822 – 7 July 1895) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
astronomerAn astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars, and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
.
He is noted for his studies of sunspots and sunspot cycles. In this regard he is often mentioned together with Edward Maunder. Spörer was the first to note a prolonged period of low sunspot activity from 1645 to 1715. This period is known as the
Maunder MinimumThe Maunder Minimum is the name used for the period roughly spanning 1645 to 1715 by John A. Eddy in a landmark 1976 paper published in Science titled "The Maunder Minimum", when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time...
.
Spörer was a contemporary of
Richard Christopher CarringtonRichard Christopher Carrington was an English amateur astronomer whose 1859 astronomical observations first corroborated the existence of solar flares as well as their electrical influence upon the Earth and its aurorae; and whose 1863 records of sunspot observations demonstrated differential...
, an English astronomer.
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Friederich Wilhelm Gustav Spörer (23 October 1822 – 7 July 1895) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
astronomerAn astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars, and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
.
He is noted for his studies of sunspots and sunspot cycles. In this regard he is often mentioned together with Edward Maunder. Spörer was the first to note a prolonged period of low sunspot activity from 1645 to 1715. This period is known as the
Maunder MinimumThe Maunder Minimum is the name used for the period roughly spanning 1645 to 1715 by John A. Eddy in a landmark 1976 paper published in Science titled "The Maunder Minimum", when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time...
.
Spörer was a contemporary of
Richard Christopher CarringtonRichard Christopher Carrington was an English amateur astronomer whose 1859 astronomical observations first corroborated the existence of solar flares as well as their electrical influence upon the Earth and its aurorae; and whose 1863 records of sunspot observations demonstrated differential...
, an English astronomer. Carrington is generally credited with discovering
Spörer's lawSpörer's law predicts the variation of sunspot latitudes during a solar cycle. It was discovered by English astronomer Richard Christopher Carrington around 1861. Carrington's work was refined by German astronomer Gustav Spörer....
, which governs the variation of sunspot latitudes during the course of a
solar cycleThe solar cycle, or the solar magnetic activity cycle, is the main source of periodic solar variation driving variations in space weather. The cycle is observed by counting the frequency and placement of sunspots visible on the Sun...
. Spörer added to Carrington's observations of sunspot drift and is sometimes credited with the discovery.
The
Spörer minimumThe Spörer Minimum was a 90-year span of low solar activity, from about 1460 until 1550, which was identified and named by John A. Eddy in a landmark 1976 paper published in Science titled "The Maunder Minimum"...
was a period of low sunspot activity from roughly 1420 to 1570.
External links
- http://www.hao.ucar.edu/public/education/sp/images/spoerer.html