 Movie clip showing differential solar rotation
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- The sun does not rotate like a solid body. The rotation period varies with latitude from 24 days at the equator to 34 days approaching the solar poles.
- Because of the Earth's orbital motion, features on the solar surface as viewed from Earth recur with a period of approximately 27 days.
- Doppler-shifts of solar spectral lines indicate that the differential rotation not only varies with time but also has large eddies embedded within it. This temporal changes in the rotation can be as large as the latitudinal variations.
- It is thought that the differential rotation is produced by the interaction between the convection cells, which cover the solar surface at multiple scales and the solar rotation.
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