The Sun Doesn't Have a Thick Skin

[mareserinitatis]

If you thought the sun was a perfect sphere, you'd be pretty close to right...most of the time:

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. During years of high solar activity the sun develops a thin "cantaloupe skin" that

Comments

[cosmic_reverie]

Neat!

[mybadattitudes]

Along the same lines, the Earth isn't a perfect sphere, either. If one were to exaggerate its oblateness, the Earth would almost be pear-shaped. I, for one, would love to see a desktop globe which more accurately represents the Earth's true shape.

This topic reminds me of the segment in Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" TV series following the career of astronomer Johannes Kepler. Kepler, a strict Lutheran during the turbulent times of Reformation-era Europe, labored for years trying to fit the observations of the orbits of the known planets into a scheme demanding perfectly circular orbits in the belief that God would have the planets moving in no other, less perfect way.

It's part of our human nature to impose our notions of 'perfection' on the universe. We haven't quite learned yet how much trouble that mindset has gotten us into in the past.

Peace.

[mareserinitatis]

The formal term is an "oblate spheroid", translated to mean pretty darn close to round, but sorta flat, too. :-)

[mybadattitudes]

Just to follow up: does the term 'oblate spheroid' also refer to "rounded" objects that aren't strictly spherical; for example, I've read in at least one article where the shape of a football was referred to as an 'oblate spheroid'. Just curious.

Peace.

[mareserinitatis]

An oblate spheroid is made by taking an ellipse and creating a surface of revolution by rotating the ellipse around the minor (or short) axis. Thus, it looks like my exercise ball when I'm sitting on it.

A prolate spheroid is created when the ellipse is rotated about it's major axis, and thus will look like a football.

Whoever said a football is oblate spheroid is goin' down!

:-)