Why is the Sun spinning like a pinwheel?

An animation of images taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory on July 6, 2016 in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths appears to show the Sun spinning like a pinwheel. (Source: NASA) A few days ago, I posted a video showing a gigantic hole in the Sun's atmosphere. Now, NASA has published an animation showing the Sun spinning end over end like a pinwheel. What's going on? For a detailed explanation of the hole in the Sun, go here: What's up with that huge dark hole in the Sun? And now, what's up with the pinwheeling Sun? In the animation at the top of this post, the Sun does seem to be flipping end over end. But that's not because it has suddenly gone berserk. The pinwheel effect is the result of commands that NASA gave to the Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft, which captured the imagery — commands that deliberately caused SDO to ...