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Index to Creationist Claims,  edited by Mark Isaak,    Copyright © 2004
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Claim CE302:

The sun has 99 percent of the mass of the solar system, but less than 1 percent of the angular momentum. It is spinning too slowly to have formed naturally.

Source:

Brown, Walt, 1995. In the Beginning: Compelling evidence for creation and the Flood. Phoenix, AZ: Center for Scientific Creation, p. 19.

Response:

  1. Among solar-type stars, there is a strong correlation between age and rotation rate; the younger stars spin more rapidly (Baliunas et al. 1995). This implies some kind of braking mechanism that slows a star's rotation. A likely candidate is an interaction between the star's magnetic field and its solar wind (Parker 1965).

References:

  1. Baliunas, S. L. et al., 1995. Chromospheric variations in main-sequence stars. Astrophysical Journal 438: 269-287.
  2. Parker, E. N., 1965. Dynamical theory of the solar wind. Space Science Reviews 4: 666-708.

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created 2004-3-25