A new paper titled “ Helioseismic evidence that the solar dynamo originates near the tachocline” K. mandal 2026 indicates that sunspots originate far deeper into the solar interior than previously assumed:
“Our analysis reveals that the gradient of rotation displays ‘butterfly’–like behavior near the tachocline, which is similar to the magnetic butterfly diagram at the surface. This result supports the idea that the solar dynamo has a deep-seated origin, likely operating either near the tachocline or throughout the convection zone, thereby disfavoring the rcent scenario of a shallow, near-surface dynamo”. “https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-34336-1
“The team's analysis revealed that these migrating rotation bands in the deep solar interior form a butterfly-shaped flow pattern, mirroring the sunspot migration that later emerges at the surface.”
https://phys.org/news/2026-03-physicists-sun-magnetic-kilometers-surface.html
In other words this latest research published in Nature suggests that rather then being generated close to the suns surface the sunspot and their rotations in fact, start much deeper within the solar interior and nearer to the inner core than previously assumed.
So it looks like this latest research goes, at least part way, to confirming my Variable speed solar Dynamo model which predicts that sunspots and their rotations come from a physical mechanism deep within the suns core. A model that also explains the 22 year solar cycle more successfully than the traditional established “toroidial and polodial magnetic field” models driven by thermal convection of the solar plasma.
Sunspot Mechanism
In the variable speed model the overall solar dipole field is driven instead by a variable speed dynamo mechanism deep inside the sun. Proposed in this model is that the solar core rotates slower, and then faster than the outer solar plasma, as seen at the sun’s photosphere, over a 22 year repeating dynamo cycle. This creates an overall solar dipole field that reverses the suns overall magnetic dipole polarity every 11 years for a full 22 year cycle. The variable speed gradient between the rotation velocity of the inner core and rotational velocity of the outer parts of the solar plasma at the photosphere also creates physical eddies or vortices in the more liquid convection radiative zone plasma between the core and the photosphere. Vortices which in turn are observed as sunspots.
Very much in the same way as the speed gradient of a liquid, like water, flowing over a static river bottom will physically generate vortices or eddies in the water due to the speed gradient differential between the river bottom and the moving water surface. This means that sunspots,in the same way as the water eddies, are eddies or vortices that have their roots deep within the sun near its core and stretch upwards all the way to the surface at the photosphere. As this recently published research in Nature seems to have realised.
In the sun these individual vortices in the plasma are generated by differential rotation between the suns core and the surface in addition to the differential rotational speeds of the plasma due to the Coriolis effect between sun equator and poles, create the observed local swirling dynamo effects called sunspots in the solar plasma. The rotating plasma of each sunspot vortex is the dynamo that drives the localised sunspots magnetic field. Not the other way around as current models assume where established theory erroneously assumes magnetic fields generated by thermal convection twist the plasma into rotating dipoles of sunspots.
It is not a coincidence that the sunspots rotation direction is observed to be seen as having either negative or positive magnetic fields directions depending on the clockwise or counter clockwise rotation direction of the spot. Nor is it a coincidence that as the solar core rotates faster or slower relative to the photosphere, the coreolis effect and vortices rotation directions reverse for the sunspots in each hemisphere. And this reverse in rotation direction thus reverses the sunspots polarity. As observed.
Summary
In summary is important to point out here that contrary to traditional and current thermal convection theories of the solar dynamo which has magnetic fields generating sunspot rotation directions and motions, the variable speed model outlined here is the reverse. The physical rotations of the solar plasma between core and surface creates a dynamo that generates the overall solar dipole field and the rotational motions and rotations in the plasma as vortice eddies, in turn generate the dipole magnetic fields of sunspots.
