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stellar rotation

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angular motion of a star about its axis

~16 min read

Encyclopedic overview

This illustration shows the oblate appearance of the star Achernar caused by rapid rotation.

Stellar rotation is the angular motion of a star about its axis. The rate of rotation can be measured from the spectrum of the star, or by timing the movements of active features on the surface.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “stellar rotation” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.