Welcome to You Ask Andy

Milton Thompson, age 11, of Casa Grande, Arizona, for his question;

Does the sun rotate on its axis?

Yes, the sun rotates on its axis just as the earth does. The giant ball is about a million times bulkier than the earth, so we would expect each rotation to take longer than 24 hours. And so it does. However, the sun is made of gases, and its surface rotates at different speeds,

At the equator, the sun rotates on an average of once in every 25 earth days. North and south of the equator, the rotating gases seem to lag behind. At 30 degrees north and south, each rotation takes about 26‑ days. At 45 degrees north and south, each rotation takes 27 days. We can give only a general idea of the sun's rotation, for each spot seems to take its own time. We can make only an overall estimate of the suns rotation.

The sun's axis, of course, ends in a north and south pole. The north pole points out to a spot in the sky somewhere between the stars Vega and Polaris. This means that the sun's axis, like the earths is tilted.

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