Download Tilted Rotation of the Sun

Tilted Rotation of the Sun
The Planets Orbit in an Ecliptic Plane, Tilted 7° from the Sun's Rotation
Nearly all the Mass of the Solar System resides inside the Sun, which means that nearly all the
Kinetic Energy (of motion) and the Angular Momentum of the Solar System is also within the
Sun. No matter HOW the Solar System originally formed, how could it be that nearly all the
planets (and everything else in the Solar System) orbit in a severely TILTED PLANE (which we
call the Ecliptic)? The planets appear to be in good agreement with each other regarding the
importance of the Ecliptic regarding their Kinetic Energies and their Angular Momentums. The
Sun definitely does NOT AGREE with them, regarding its far greater Kinetic Energy and
Angular Momentum. It is as though we need to find some entirely different explanation
regarding how the Sun came into existence than whatever Theory we might develop regarding
how the planets came into existence.
People have occasionally presented their own ideas regarding how the planets may have come
about, such as from an early rotating cloud of gas and dust (around the Sun). None of those
people have ever acknowledged that the Sun's rotation does not remotely fit in with any of their
ideas! It really DOES seem likely that, somehow, the Sun and the planets must have formed
from some single process. We just have no clue as to what that process might have been!
Revolving gas and dust clouds initially sounds attractive regarding how the planets may have
formed, but such ideas are not remotely compatible with the Sun's tilted rotation now.
Some people blow this off by saying that some passing star might have gone by and HIT the Sun
and caused it to get tilted. There are poorly informed people who consider themselves to be
scientists, who claim the same thing happened to the Earth in the distant past, to "cause it to flip
over" as they try to explain how the Earth's Magnetic Field has been proven to reverse (many,
many, many times as it turns out!) Such people are ignorant of an important scientific Law, that
of the Conservation of Angular Momentum. Once you have ANY massive object spinning, it
has spectacular amounts of Angular Momentum AND it behaves like a Gyroscope where its spin
axis is pointed in a VERY constant direction! NOTHING could impact the Earth or the Sun to
CHANGE that direction, and the ONLY way it could change at all is VERY SLOWLY and by a
process called Precession. (There are also equally poorly informed people who make lots of bad
assumptions where they claim that something like a Mars-sized-planet had HIT the Earth and
that alleged impact had ripped the Moon out of the Earth. I wish that such people would study
more about Angular Momentum and Kinetic Energy such that they would see the humor in such
speculations!
All the concepts discussed here involve the Conservation of Energy, specifically Kinetic Energy
of planet's orbiting and rotating and the Sun's Kinetic Energy of rotation.
Scientists have long known that our Sun rotates about once a month. There may be cause to
believe that the Sun had earlier rotated more rapidly. There are two phenomena that may have
that consequence.
Nearly all of the planets revolve around the Sun in a Plane wee call the Ecliptic. The Sun's
axis of rotation is NOT lined up with where all the planets are, as it is TILTED by more
than a 7 angle! This is a problem regarding both the Conservation of Angular Momentum
and the Conservation of Energy. It also should be considered regarding any potential
theory regarding how the planets formed and the importance of the Invariable Plane and
the Ecliptic Plane, which seems to get ignored by people who consider those issues. All that
enormous Angular Momentum and Kinetic Energy TILTED at about a 7-degree angle
seems like it should be important!
The Sun has existed for around five billion years. At the beginning of that time, the Sun had
some specific amount of angular momentum of rotation. Our traditional understanding of
Physics says that angular momentum must be conserved. A commonly seen example is when an
ice skater is slowly spinning with arms extended, draws her arms in, and suddenly spins very
rapidly.
In the case of the Sun, a peculiar condition exists. In the process of creating its energy, some of
its mass disappears! When this mass disappears, what happens with the angular momentum of
rotation that had been carried by that mass? Does it disappear with the mass that disappears?
That would imply that the Sun would continue to rotate at the same rate. Or does it remain,
distributed among the remaining atoms of the Sun? That would imply that the Sun should begin
to spin faster!
The Sun creates a LOT of energy. Every second, about 3.86 * 1026 joules (watt-seconds) of
energy is radiated outward from the Sun's surface. That energy was all created from the
conversion of mass to energy in accordance with Einstein's E=mc2. Knowing that the speed of
light is 3.0 * 108 meters per second, we can easily determine that 4.3 * 109 kg of mass disappears
every second from the Sun. Isn't that something? 4.3 BILLION kilograms of the Sun disappear
every second! (It will still last for many billions of years to come!)
For comparison, this is roughly 1.4 * 1014 tons per year. The Earth has a mass of about 6.0 *
1021 metric tonnes, which indicates that the Sun loses a mass equal to the entire Earth around
every 40 million years! In the Sun's probable 5 billion years of creating energy by fusion, the
Sun has therefore had the equivalent of more than a hundred Earths "disappear"!
Continuing this logic, the Sun has existed for around 1.6 * 1017 seconds, so, if its radiation has
been relatively constant during that time, a total of about 7 * 1026 kg has already disappeared in
this way. The present mass of the Sun is 1.99 * 1030, so only about one part in 2500 has already
disappeared.
When the mass disappears, it disappears near the very center of the Sun, where it is hottest. In
other words, the atoms of the Sun that disappear in the conversion to energy have minimal
rotational angular momentum. This suggests that this effect would have a tiny increase in the
rotation rate of the Sun, about one part in two million. Pretty much irrelevant!
The other effect that may be affecting the rotation rate of the Sun has to do with a lot of
turbulence that exists on and in the Sun. We can see the churning motions of the surface. We
assume that the heat driven effects continue throughout the Sun, where the rising heat from the
center (where the energy is created) is moving upward and outward to get to the outer surface
where it can be radiated into space. Convection cells are certainly one of the main processes
inside the Sun in accomplishing this heat transfer.
That churning motion must necessarily create frictional heat losses. Some of the kinetic energy
of rotational motion must be converted into frictional heat, which means there would be less
remaining kinetic energy of rotation. This would imply a gradual slowing of the rotation rate. In
the process, the amount of rotational angular momentum would also decrease, but that would go
into the turbulence eddies.
For more information on this effect, please see my article at http://mbsoft.com/public/sunrotat.html and a similar article on Rotation of Jupiter, Saturn, and the Earth
at http://mb-soft.com/public/planetro.html.
This effect in the Sun appears to be much more substantial than the 'disappearance effect'
mentioned above. That suggests that the Sun may have significantly slowed down in its rotation
during the past five billion years. Trying to quantify this effect is difficult, because there are so
many variables inside the Sun that are unknown.