An image of the sun in space, with a dark shadow partially covering it where the moon crosses in front of it. (Image credit: NOAA/ SSEC Geostationary Satellite) The sun's powerful magnetic dynamo that drives sunspot activity and contributes to unleashing powerful solar flares and coronal mass ejections has been confirmed as existing 124,000 miles (200,000 kilometers) beneath the sun's visible surface — equivalent to 16 Earth widths' deep. Earth 's magnetic dynamo is situated in our planet's outer core, where the convection of molten iron generates electrical currents. The sun 's core is a nuclear furnace of shredded atoms, and its inner two-thirds make up a radiative zone of gamma-ray photons, so the solar magnetic field cannot be generated there. Instead, all the convection takes place in the sun's outer-third, in the suitably named convective zone.…