Solar Rotation Activity

Name: Niaja Stringfield

The rotation of the sun is determined by observing features on its surface, such as sunspots. It is observed that
the sun rotates as a fluid object, rotating faster at the equator than at the poles. In this activity, you will track the
motion of sunspots for a number of days and draw conclusions about the rotation of the sun.

 Watch the movie “spotexrS.mov” and choose which of the sunspots you would like to follow. Any one
will do, but some are easier to track than others.

 Describe the changes that you see for the duration of the movie.

I chose to follow the sunspot located at -60 degrees at the top of the movie. Throughout the movie, my chosen
sunspot seems to move approximately 15 degrees per day.

 Estimate the longitudinal position of your sunspot for each of the days of the movie and record them in
the table below:

Date Longitude (deg) Date Longitude

(deg)
June 22 -60 June 27 7.5
June 23 -45 June 28 22.5
June 24 -31 June 29 33
June 25 -17 June 30 44
June 26 -10 July 1 60

 What is the total number of days for this sunspot observation? Ten days

 What is the total longitudinal displacement (in degrees) of your sunspot during this interval? 120
degrees

 Since you now know how many days it takes for your sunspot to travel a certain number of degrees, how
many days would it take for your sunspot to travel 360 degrees (one full revolution)? 30 days

 Comment on the correctness of your result based on some research. How is your result affected by the
rotation of the earth?

Per the data above, based on the movement of the sunspots in the movie, the sunspot I chose should travel 360
degrees (or a full rotation of the Sun) in 30 days. However, research shows that because the Sun is a ball of gas
and plasma, rather than one solid object, different parts of it rotate at different rates; parts nearest its equator
rotate approximately once every twenty-five days, but parts closer to its poles rotate once every 36 days.
Additionally, the Earth rotates much more quickly- a full rotation every day. And because both the Sun and the
Earth rotate on their axes, the angle at which we view sunspots is constantly changing, meaning that their
rotations are most likely not as uniform as the ones presented in the video.