![]() :think: The OP has a point, as does ssffww. The French Revolution chopped off the heads of the ruling nobility and brought the oppressed commoners up to the top. now that I think of it, in history or the social sciences, a "revolution" means 180 degrees. To rotate, though, it seems slightly more usual to say, he rotated 270 degrees and set out in a new direction.Įdit: Although. If you don't make it all the way around, then we can speak of a partial revolution. Thus: in ten years the earth makes ten revolutions about the sun. When we speak of a "revolution" (for instance of the earth around the sun) we usually mean a complete revolution all the way around. ![]() But I would say there is this shade of meaning. In my opinion, I think that in ordinary discourse (i.e., if one is neither a figure skater nor an astronomer), the words are pretty much interchangeable. But note that the dictionary definition of "Rotate" gives the alternative, "Revolve," and the dictionary definition of Revolve" includes "Rotate." "What this means is that the gas cloud from which the sun formed had some residual angular momentum that was passed on to the sun when it formed, which gives the sun the rotation that we observe today.This is how astronomers speak about about their craft. "The rotation of the sun is due to conservation of angular moment," National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) scientist Jeff Mangum said. NASA Science suggests that an exploding star caused this to collapse forming a solar nebula.Īt the center of this nebula, our sun formed incorporating 99 percent of the available matter with the outer dust clumps forming the planets. The sun's counterclockwise rotation and the counterclockwise rotation of the entire solar system (except two planets) is a result of its formation around 4.5 billion years ago.Īt this point in the universe's history, the solar system was no more than a giant rotating disc of gas and dust. The ice giants Uranus and Neptune also have differential rotation - all spinning faster at their equators than they do at the poles. This is not surprising given their gaseous composition. The gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn, also experience differential rotation. This type of rotation isn't unique to the sun or even to stellar bodies. This has led to solar scientists intensely studying the effects that arise as a result of different rotation rates throughout our star. The layers of the sun's interior also rotate at different speeds with inner regions actually rotating more like the solid bodies of the inner solar system.Īstronomers estimate that the core of the sun actually rotates as rapidly as once a week, four times faster than its surface and intermediate layers, according to NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) page. (Image credit: ANDRZEJ WOJCICKI/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY via Getty Images.)ĭifferences in rotation rates on our star aren't isolated to its surface, however. The sun (right) is orbited by the planets of the solar system. "The source of this 'differential rotation' is an area of current research in solar astronomy." "Since the sun is a ball of gas/plasma, it does not have to rotate rigidly like the solid planets and moons do," according to NASA. This means that its rotation proceeds at different rates depending on where you look at the star. The sun experiences something called differential rotation. That means that the way it rotates is different than the way our planet, Mars, Venus, and Mercury do. While Earth and the other inner planets are composed of solid rock, the sun is an ultra-hot ball of dense ionized gas - mainly hydrogen and helium - called plasma. Primarily, how different it is from the rotation of our planet. To this day, astronomers and solar scientists use sunspots and other features on the surface of our star to measure its rotation. Yet, there is more to learn about the sun's rotation. ![]() By using sunspots, he had discovered that the sun rotates, pleasingly ironic given these dark cool patches on the surface of the sun are an artifact of that rotation.
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