Credit: Nick Featherstone and Bradley Hindman, University of Colorado Boulder
A 3-D rendering shows simulated solar convection realized at different rotation rates. Regions of upflow and downflow are rendered in red and blue, respectively. As rotational influence increases from left (non-rotating) to right (rapidly rotating), convective patterns become increasingly more organized and elongated. Understanding the sun's location along this spectrum represents a major step toward understanding how it sustains a magnetic field.