A sunspot is a region on the Sun's surface (photosphere) that is marke by a lower temperature than its surroundings and has intense magnetic activity, which inhibits convection, forming areas of reduced surface temperature. They can be visible from Earth without the aid of a telescope. Although they are blindingly bright at temperatures of roughly 4000-4500 K, the contrast with the surrounding material at about 5800 K leaves them clearly visible as dark spots, as the intensity of a heated black body (closely approximated by the photosphere) is a function of T to the fourth power. If a sunspot was isolated from the surrounding photosphere it would be brighter than an electric arc. A minimum in the eleven-year sunspot cycle may happen between 2007 and 2008 and while the observation of a reverse polarity sunspot on 4 January 2008 the 1st Cycle 24 sunspot was sighted, no additional sunspots have yet been seen in this cycle. The definition of a new sunspot cycle is when the average number of sunspots of the new cycle's magnetic polarity outnumber those of the old cycle's polarity. Forecasts in 2006 expected cycle 24 to start between late 2007 and early 2008, but new estimates suggest a delay until 2009. Sunspots, being the manifestation of intense magnetic activity, host secondary phenomena such as coronal loops and reconnection events. Most solar flares and coronal mass ejections originate in magnetically active regions around visible sunspot groupings. Similar phenomena indirectly observed on stars are commonly called starspots and both light and dark spots have been measured.