Just keep in mind the hands of the clock and your favourite merry-go-round to recall the difference that explains rotation implies spinning around one's own axis, and revolution means moving around another object. Rotation and Revolution period of Planets The revolving object continuously changes position. ![]() Spin is less technical and formal than rotate, but its still fairly neutral. The earth revolves around the sun, there are revolving restaurants, and a revolver is a gun with a chamber that has bullets around the edge. Whereas revolution is when an object travels around an external axis. Revolve: A bit technical, like rotate, but refers to going around rather than twisting. It’s usually the movement of an object on its axis.Ī rotating object spins around an internal axis Revolution means a circular motion around an axis, located outside the object. Rotation refers to a circular motion around an axis, located within the body of the object. "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.Key Differences between Rotation and Revolution "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. In addition, they all rotate in the same general. The planets all revolve around the sun in the same direction and in virtually the same plane. The gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn, also experience differential rotation. The sun itself rotates slowly, only once a month. ![]() 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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