Still, for more than 50 years, researchers have found it quite challenging to measure the sun's shape. "There are literally tens of measurements, and most of them don't agree," Kuhn said.

A study reveals that the sun is both flatter, yet strangely rounder, than previously thought. The sun's strange shape hints at solar mysteries inside the star.

If the sun were a meter-wide (3.3-foot-wide) beach ball, Kuhn said, the variation in the sun's shape from the highest to the lowest point would be about 17 microns—less than the width of a fine ...

But the Sun doesn't appear to simply rise and fall in the sky in a symmetric shape. Sunset and sunrise times vary throughout the year. The Sun reaches its highest point at a variety of times as ...

Later in the cycle, a less active sun lets it deflate. The shape of the heliosphere may not be as uniform as its name implies either. “In general, nature doesn’t have very smooth boundaries.

By historical definition, Solar Cycle 1 occurred between 1755 and 1766, placing the sun's current cycle in Solar Cycle 25. As of the end of 2024, we are firmly within the solar maximum period.

If the sun were a meter-wide (3.3-foot-wide) beach ball, Kuhn said, the variation in the sun's shape from the highest to the lowest point would be about 17 microns—less than the width of a fine ...