Does the Sun Rotate?
upstart writes:
The sun's permanent position in the sky, plus the fact that Earth and the other planets revolve around it, may give the impression that it is static and does not move or rotate.
Yet we have been aware that the sun rotates since the 17th century. Like the majority of the solar system's planets, this rotation is counter-clockwise, but as well as being significantly slower than Earth's rotation, the sun's rotation is much more complex.
The discovery that the sun rotates dates back to the time of Galileo Galilei, according to The British Library (opens in new tab). Along with several of his contemporary earlier astronomers, Galileo had observed dark spots of the sun that we now call sunspots and understand to be important parts of the solar cycle.
Galileo noticed something else too. He found these dark spots appeared to move, vanishing and returning as he observed the sun with his telescope.
In 1612, the early scientist wrote: "It is also manifest that their rotation is about the sun... to me, it seems more probable that the movement is of the solar globe than of its surroundings," according to the book 'Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo'.
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