User:Kalyanamanasa/Sandbox

the science project Rotation of the Sun.

Important! Never look directly at Sun! It can damage your eyes.

Sun is the center of our solar system. It's G2 class star. This stars also known as yellow dvarves. All planets in our solar system rotating around the Sun and also around their own axis. Earth makes one turn in almost exactly 24 hours. Mars makes one turn in 24 hours, 39min., 35 sec. It's quite happy coincidence for the mars missions that will land on this planet as it should be pretty easy to adopt to this difference. The other planets of our system have very different day duration. For example Venus's day is 243 Earth days! Venus in many respects is Earth's sister planet but this rotation rate and thick atmosphere made it very inhabitable place. Amazingly the day on Venus is longer than year so in the morning Sun rises in the west!

Anyways, if all planets are rotating, our Sun must be rotating too. What it's rotation period? How it compare to solar system planets periods? Is there a way to find it out?

Yes, because Sun's surface have spots. Check position of the spots on the Sun disc every day and you can measure how fast it rotates.

You may decide to build your own Solar Observatory.

Never look directly at Sun through a telescope!

Or you can use latest data from orbital solar and heliospheric observatory (SOHO). The cool thing about that is that you can get data not only visible light but also taken trough narrow band filters in ultra violet rays. They may reveal much more interesting details of the Sun surface than you can see in visible light. You can also watch and study solar corona (even though it's not directly related to this project).

Courtesy of SOHO (ESA&NASA)

Think of what other science fair projects could be done with this great source of information.

Another great resource which may be helpful is National Solar Observatory.