Sunspots are irregularly shaped dark areas on the face of the sun. Sunspots are storms on the surface of the sun. They appear as dark areas because they are cooler than the surrounding material. Some spots can be larger than 8 times the size of the earth and last for weeks, but most smaller ones only last for a few days.
Sunspots happen in a cycle which is fairly predictable.
The up and down wave happens every 11 years. Scientists at NASA continue to study the sun and improve the predicted sunspot count in hopes to determine what sunspots do to our weather. One interesting thing we can learn about the sun from sunspots is how fast it spins. Since the sun is not solid, it spins at different speeds. At the sun's equator it spins once every 25 days and at the poles every 35 days.