Linda Panaro, age 12, of Pincourt, Quebec, Canada, for her question:

 Does the sun really rotate on its axis?

We compare rotation to the spinning motion of a top. This seems reasonable when we think of the earth. Its solid globe can rotate around its central axis as a jingle unit. However, the sun is a ball of blazing gases. And gases are famous for swirling and whirling, especially hot ones. This factor prevents the sun from rotating around its axis as a single unit. However, it does rotate.

The sun and almost everything else in our solar system rotates from west to east. All its seething gases rotate around with the big ball    but because they are fluid gases they rotate at different speeds. As on earth, the surface rotation speed is fastest at the equator and it slows down. toward the poles. On the sun the rotating gases lag behind between the equator and the poles. The solar equator completes a rotation in 24 days and latitudes farther north and south take longer. At latitudes 75 degrees, the rotation period is about 33 days. The average rotation period of the sun's surface is about a month.