facula

Stellar contamination refers to the influence of the star's own features, such as dark spots and bright faculae, on the measurements of the exoplanet's atmosphere.

All of the new monikers contain “facula,” which means “bright spot,” because they are brighter than the background terrain, as well as the word “snake” in one of Earth’s various languages.

Even during a prolonged minimum, they claim, an extensive network of very small faculae on the sun’s hot surface remains to keep the energy output above a certain threshold level.

These markings are known as the faculae, from their brightness.

He considers it indeed "highly probable that the preparatory sign of a new spot is always a small, bright patch of facula."