facula

American  

[fak-yuh-luh] / ˈfæk yə lə /

noun

Astronomy.

faculae plural

1. an irregular, unusually bright patch on the sun's surface.

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facula British  

/ ˈfækjʊlə /

noun

1. any of the bright areas on the sun's surface, usually appearing just before a sunspot and subject to the same 11-year cycle

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facula Scientific  

/ făk′yə-lə /

faculae plural

1. A bright, cloudlike structure on the Sun's surface, ascending several hundred kilometers above the photosphere and often associated with sunspots. Faculae are formed when a strong magnetic field heats a region of the photosphere to higher temperatures than the surrounding area. They occur all over the Sun but are usually only visible near the limb (the outer edge of the Sun's apparent disk), where the photosphere appears dimmer than in the center.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• facular
  adjective

Inflected Forms

noun

• faculae
  plural

Etymology

Origin of facula

1700–10; < Latin: little torch, equivalent to fac- (stem of fax ) torch + -ula -ule