http://tags.lifehacker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png http://io9.com/tag/sunspots http://io9.com/tag/sunspots Sunspots have returned at last, after a worryingly dormant solar minimum. To celebrate, here are four current solar pictures from NASA's Solar And Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). They're the sun at 304 Angstrom, 171 Angstrom, 195 Angstrom and 204 Angstrom.

]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5367992&view=rss&microfeed=true NASA channels Warhol in these ultraviolet images of the sun, posted today. The non-artistic reason for the differing color spectrums is to show off a reversed-polarity sunspot, on the left. This sunspot marks the end of another cycle of waxing and waning solar flares, meaning the sun will begin climbing towards Solar Max, which it will reach in 2011 or 2012. Sidenote: wouldn't Solar Max be a good superhero name?

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