Our sun, as observed by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory on Jan. 5,
2015, reveals its age through the characteristics of its spin, according
to new research.
Keeping accurate time and determining age are two crucial, constant
goals in science. In the 1700s the proof and construction of an elegant,
precise maritime clock opened up much safer and more efficient ocean
exploration and provided a way forward for more accurate mapping on
Earth. Before then, mariners and astronomers alike were both, literally,
at sea.
Likewise, until now, determining the age of stars has been
equivalent only to saying that a person is young or old, and our guesses
of someone’s age are typically off by as much as 15 percent. But by
building on the work of others (as it goes in science) and carefully
working out for over a decade how to construct a “clock” to measure the
ages of stars, Sydney Barnes, of the Leibniz-Institut fuer Astophysik
Potsdam (AIP), Germany, derived an elegant and extraordinary method he
named “gyrochronology” to derive a star’s age from its spin rate and its
mass.
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