scientist say they have discovered the Sun ’s gist is rotate four times faster than its surface , a surprising discovery that may be a relic of its organisation .

The finding was result by scientists from the University of the Côte d’Azur   in France ,   and published in the journalAstronomy and Astrophysics . The core make up about a one-fourth of the Sun ’s radius of 696,000 kilometers ( 432,000 miles ) .

It ’s thought this phenomenon may be related to the period after the formation of the Sun 4.6 billion years ago , when solar malarky slowed the rotary motion of the outer portion . The kernel , however , could have been unaffected and hold its original stride . This idea has been vaunt for 20 yr , but it has never been discovered before .

“ The most probable explanation is that this core rotation is leave over from the period when the Sun formed , ” say Roger Ulrich from the University of California , Los Angeles , a Centennial State - author of the study , in astatement . “ It ’s a surprise , and exciting to call up we might have uncovered a relic of what the Sun was like when it first formed . ”

The discovery was made using an pawn called GOLF ( Global Oscillations at Low Frequency ) on NASA and ESA ’s SOHO ( the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory ) spacecraft . This observed a eccentric of seismal wave in the Sun , called g - mode , and saw how they interacted with the core .

“ This is certainly the biggest result of SOHO in the last decade , and one of SOHO ’s all - time top discoveries , ” said Bernhard Fleck , ESA ’s SOHO project scientist based at NASA ’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt , Maryland in a separatestatement .

Using 16.5 years of data pile up by GOLF , the scientist were capable to see how long it took acoustical waves to travel through the Sun and back to the surface . This journeying accept about four hours and seven second .

But they were also able-bodied to measure the impact of soberness waves in the Sun ’s meat – basically fluid waving like you see on an sea . The imprint of these showed the nitty-gritty was rotating once per week , compare to the control surface , which takes 25 days at the equator and 35 days at the poles .

Now , scientist can bulge out take the Sun in a whole new fashion , and see how this disagree rotation affects the surface . It ’s think that the varying revolution may even toy a part in the universe of vast sunspots on the surface .