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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? e-edition | subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Earthquake rumbles Eugene area ... J'ville planner at 'flash point' turns in resignation ... 5 Things to Do on the Fourth ... Earthquake rumbles Eugene area ... J'ville planner at 'flash point' turns in resignation ... 5 Things to Do on the Fourth ... Looking Up: As the worlds turn Comment MailTribune.com Writer Posted Oct. 17, 2014 at 12:01 AM Posted Oct. 17, 2014 at 12:01 AM » Social News By Peter Becker More Content Now It seems the universe has been put on spin cycle. Most everywhere we look, planets, moons, stars and galaxies are rotating. In fact, nothing seems to sit still. If they’re not rotating, they are still revolving around something. Like a merry go-round, everything on the Earth rotates along with our world, and the atoms making up all matter keep whirling about like tiny figure skaters. While each of the planets in our Solar System rotate, they do so at various rates. The Earth, at nearly 8,000 miles wide spins in 23 hours, 56 minutes. Giant Jupiter, which is 88,846 miles wide, rotates once in 9 hours, 56 minutes. This fast rotation causes the largely gaseous planet to flatten at the poles. The planet is seven percent wider at the equator, distinctly visible with a small telescope. Rather than a perfect sphere, Jupiter is an "oblate spheroid," wider at the equator. Some of us have known this all too well but our excuse is not that we spin too fast! Actually, Earth is somewhat flattened at the poles as well, for the same reason. Some bodies close in orbit, such as the moon, still rotate but are "tidally locked." That is, the time of rotation becomes linked to the time of revolution, and the same side of the moon always faces the Earth. For hundreds of years, astronomers suspected Mercury rotated synchronously, keeping once face to the Sun. Its actual rotation, however, turns out to be exactly one and a half times the 88 earth-days the planet takes to go around the sun. The result is that the time the sun is up on Mercury is twice as long as its year. Even odder, Mercury is orbiting faster than it is rotating at perihelion- its closest passage to the sun - making the sun appear to briefly move backwards in the Mercurial sky! Venus is definitely a rebel. Its period of rotation, 243 earth-days, is lightly longer than its year. Even worse, the planet rotates retrograde, or exactly opposite the other planets. If the perpetually cloudy skies on Venus allowed you to see the Sun, you would see it rise in the west and set in the east. Mars is practically Earth’s cousin, in a variety of ways. A day on Mars is just a few minutes longer than on Earth, spinning once in 24 hours, 40 minutes. Like Jupiter, Saturn is distinctly oblate, whipping around in 10 hours, 47 minutes. Uranus spins in 17.9 hours; Neptune, 16.11 hours. Note that Jupiter through Neptune are all giant planets and move around the quickest. Little Pluto spins once in 6.38 Earth-days. Stars rotate as well. The sun, our nearest star, turns around in approximately 27 earth-days. Other stars rotate very quickly. The bright bluish star Vega, visible in the northeast on a springtime evening, spins so fast, the star is 23 percent wider at the equator. Vega spins in 12-1/2 hours. The fast spin also causes the equatorial region to be cooler and darker making the star looks like a very squat, blue ball, with a dark blue band. The fastest known stars, however, are pulsars. Highly magnetized, these stars are so compressed that they whirl around in a matter of seconds, and emit beams of electromagnetic radiation from the poles. In contrast, our vast Milky Way Galaxy also spins, whipping its stars and dusty, gaseous nebulae into beautiful spiral arms. The Milky Way rotates once around in about 225 million years. The galaxy is so huge, however, that in an hour’s time, the galaxy moves about 600,000 miles. Astronomers remain perplexed with the observed rotation rates of galaxies. With the observed amount of matter in a galaxy, they should be moving slower than they are. Making up the difference is what for now is referred to as "dark matter," a mysterious component of the universe keeping theorists busy. New moon is on Oct. 23. Keep looking up! MailTribune.com Writer Posted Oct. 17, 2014 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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