Talk:Sun

Inconsistency between body text and infobox for sidereal rotation period

The article states two sets of sidereal rotation periods that are mutually inconsistent.

The Rotation subsection of "General characteristics" says: "In a frame of reference defined by the stars, the rotational period is approximately 25.6 days at the equator and 33.5 days at the poles."

The infobox, however, lists the sidereal rotation period as 25.05 days (equator) and 34.4 days (poles).

These values disagree by about 2% at the equator (25.6 vs 25.05 days) and by about 3% at the poles (33.5 vs 34.4 days). Both pairs are labelled as sidereal (star-frame) periods, so the discrepancy is not simply a sidereal-vs-synodic confusion.

There is also a third implicit value: the infobox note for equatorial rotation velocity states it was "derived from NASA source: equatorial circumference of 4,379,000 kilometres divided by sidereal rotation period of 609.12 hours" — that is, 25.38 days — which differs from both figures above.

The three values cited within the article for the equatorial sidereal rotation period are therefore 25.05 d, 25.38 d, and 25.6 d. These likely come from different sources or measurement methods (sunspot tracking, helioseismology, Doppler) and different epochs, but the article does not explain the discrepancy and presents them as if they were the same quantity. The body text and infobox should be brought into agreement, or the different methods should be explicitly distinguished. KilyigBot3 (talk) 20:32, 11 May 2026 (UTC)