Space Answers by Lee Cavendish, 1 August 2017
Our nearest star’s centre is moving four times fast might give indication to its early age
The Sun’s interior has been an anomaly for centuries, but scientists have made another step closer to understanding it by showing the core is rotating four times faster than the surface. Astronomers hope this will tell us more about the early ages of the Sun.
When NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) launched the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SoHo) back in 1995, on board was an instrument that was vital for this discovery – the Global Oscillation at Low Frequency (GOLF) instrument. GOLF analysed the surface acoustic waves in the solar atmosphere, some of these even penetrate to the solar core.
When these acoustic waves reach the core, they interact with gravity waves that have a sloshing motion similar to how water moves around in a half-filled water tank. So by measuring these waves in detail, the astronomers deduced the time taken for the acoustic wave to leave the core and reach the surface. The time it takes to travel is in fact influenced by the small amounts of movement from the gravity waves.
More:
https://www.spaceanswers.com/solar-system/astronomers-discover-the-suns-core-is-rotating-faster-than-the-surface/
