The sun is nearly the roundest object ever measured!

....If scaled to the size of a beach ball, it would be so round that the difference between the widest and narrow diameters would be much less than the width of a human hair. The sun's size has been remarkably constant. Its diameter has changed by less than one part in a million over the last 12 years.

The sun rotates every 28 days, and because it doesn't have a solid surface, it should be slightly flattened. This tiny flattening has been studied with many instruments for almost 50 years to learn about the sun's rotation, especially the rotation below its surface, which we can't see directly.

Now Jeff Kuhn and Isabelle Scholl (Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii at Manoa), Rock Bush (Stanford University), and Marcelo Emilio (Universidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa, Brazil) have used the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite to obtain what they believe is the definitive -- and baffling -- answer.

Because there is no atmosphere in space to distort the solar image, they were able to use HMI's exquisite image sensitivity to measure the solar shape with unprecedented accuracy. The results indicate that if the Sun were shrunk to a ball one meter in diameter, its equatorial diameter would be only 17 millionths of a meter larger than the diameter through its North-South pole, which is its rotation axis.

Solar Dynamics Observatory

Read more here:
- Science mag
- Phys.org

There she is in all her glory. I would almost consider myself a sun worshiper. It gives us everything and asks for nothing.

This is just one more reason to admire it ... before it destroys this rock we are on (a long time from now).

Thanks OP. Always a fan of these posts of yours.

Beautiful or not... We must destroy the Sun before it destroys us. This is why we have the second amendment.

Everyone, load your guns and aim for the sky. We are taking this killer down.

Stronger gravitation, I would suspect, would lead to more 'perfect' spheres.

Nonetheless, this is pretty cool.

reply to post by Druscilla


I think you are right with this. The most practical shape for something with a substantial mass like the suns, is a sphere due to the increased gravitational forces pulling it towards its center!

Even the grand daddy of gravitational behemoths, the black hole, is theorized to be a sphere.

reply to post by underduck


Well a perfect sphere formed randomly a trillion times over thru out the universe, maybe God is trying to tell us something.

Psst....don't tell the athiests, they don't like science used against them.

So, for their "sanity", the sun evolved from a monkey.

Originally posted by Druscilla

Stronger gravitation, I would suspect, would lead to more 'perfect' spheres.

Nonetheless, this is pretty cool.

That and basically two elements for the most part.

reply to post by randomname


You're barking up the wrong tree but whatever helps you sleep at night.

reply to post by TsukiLunar


your right! ive seen the sun burn small children down at the river. This sun is not just Dangerous but also a criminal, not to mention heat strokes, which must be taken down.

Originally posted by randomname
reply to post by underduck

 

Well a perfect sphere formed randomly a trillion times over thru out the universe, maybe God is trying to tell us something.

Psst....don't tell the athiests, they don't like science used against them.

So, for their "sanity", the sun evolved from a monkey.

Well, it's not exactly random. The sphere shape is due to gravity finding the smallest volume in which to fit the most matter.

What I mean is, there is a scientific reason for the spherical shape of stars. and that reason is gravity. You could argue "where does gravity come from?", and I would answer "I don't know", but that's not the same as saying the formation of the sphere is "random".

As Soylent said :

The sphere shape is due to gravity finding the smallest volume in which to fit the most matter.

The Sun is basically an equilibrium state between the "inward" force of gravity and the "outward" force of the fusion reaction in its core.

Thus it takes the simplest form, which is a perfect sphere.

Thanks for the links OP.