Sun's Southern Hemisphere Dotted with Sunspots

A group of sunspots, labeled as Active Region 1520 (including 1519 and 1521) rotated into view over the left side of the sun on July 7, 2012. The large spot on the left stretches more than 11 Earths, or 87,000 miles across. The full chain of spots is closer to 200,000 miles across. This image was captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory's HMI instrument on July 10. Credit: NASA/SDO/HMI

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