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Scientists using NASA's RHESSI spacecraft have measured the roundness of the sun with unprecedented precision, and they find that it is not a perfect sphere.
"We have found that the surface of the sun has rough structure: bright ridges arranged in a network pattern, as on the surface of a cantaloupe but much more subtle," describes Hudson. During active phases of the solar cycle, these ridges emerge around the sun's equator, brightening and fattening the "stellar waist."
Tiny departures from perfect roundness can, for example, affect the sun's gravitational pull on Mercury and skew tests of Einstein's theory of relativity that depend on careful measurements of the inner planet's orbit. Small bulges are also telltale signs of hidden motions inside the sun. For instance, if the sun had a rapidly rotating core left over from early stages of star formation, and if that core were tilted with respect to its outer layers, the result would be surface bulging.
Originally posted by peacejet
So, as you can see einsteins theory is in danger
Tiny departures from perfect roundness can, for example, affect the sun's gravitational pull on Mercury and skew tests of Einstein's theory of relativity that depend on careful measurements of the inner planet's orbit.
Since almost two centuries earlier astronomers had been aware of a small flaw in Mercury's orbit around the Sun, as predicted by Newton's laws. As the closest planet to the Sun, Mercury orbits a region in the solar system where spacetime is disturbed by t he Sun's mass. Mercury's elliptical path around the Sun shifts slightly with each orbit such that its closest point to the Sun (or "perihelion") shifts forward with each pass. Newton's theory had predicted an advance only half as large as the one actually observed. Einstein's predictions exactly matched the observation.