Someone help me understand AR3445

[MrShorty]

It has been forever and a day since I've posted here. Today, I had a peak at the sun, and was struck by AR3445. Most of the time, sunspots are fairly small with only one or two "spots." AR3445, today, though, shows up as a broad region of a bunch of small spots. Anyone help me understand what causes this kind of broad region of small spots rather than a couple of large spots?

Picture isn't very good, but you can see AR3445 in the upper right, and AR3435 in the lower left.

[Thefatkitty]

Nice pic What you see in your image is from the layer of the Sun called the Photosphere, this is where the light that we see emits from. The region above that is the Chromosphere, where Ha light is emitted. When seen in that context, all those "spots" are actually part of a larger area so to speak. I've noticed it over the past few days as well. You're right; it's usually a grouping of larger spots, but this one is a rebel

A nice view of it here; you can see some of the individual spots:

https://earthsky.org/sun/sun-activity-solar-flare-cme-aurora-updates/

All the best,

[messier 111]

I hope I understand your question correctly.
It is impossible to predict where the sunspots will appear, the internal magnetic field of the sun manages the structure of the photosphere.
Consequently, sunspots have different shapes and sizes.
sunspots are unpredictable, one day they are small, the next day bigger or gone.
All this is the result of the internal magnetic field.