Sun is the most perfect sphere ever observed in nature

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/aug/16/sun-perfect-sphere-nature

by tokenadult • 14 years ago

5 3 14 years ago

guardian.co.uk

tokenadult• 14 years ago

I thought this headline was startling, and after reading through the article submitted here, I hunted up more reporting on the issue. The abstract of the underlying research report

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/08/15/science.1...

leads to the full report in the journal Science for people who can get through the Science paywall, and other reporting on the research report from Science staff writers

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/08/sun-slimmer-th...

and from other journalists

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/08/120817-sun-s...

http://www.nature.com/news/sun-stays-nearly-spherical-even-w...

fills in some of the details.

Foy• 14 years ago

Kind of funny that the most perfect sphere ever observed in nature was staring us in the face this whole time. :)

Also, how is it that this was only measured just recently? Astronomers suspected it was wider at the equator, like Jupiter, but never bothered to check?

alpine• 14 years ago

As a spinning ball of gas, astronomers had always expected our nearest star to bulge slightly at its equator, making it very slightly flying-saucer shaped

I stopped reading at this point.

Sun is the most perfect sphere ever observed in nature

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