Based on the Phoenix lander, the craft is tasked with giving us a peek beneath the planet's surface, armed with tools that include a geodetic instrument from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which will be used to calculate Mars' rotation axis, a seismic wave sensor and a subsurface heat probe, to measure the planet's internal temperature.

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Because Jupiter's axis of rotation does not quite line up with its magnetic axis, the moons that orbit the planet feel such a fluctuating magnetic force.

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Today motion sensing has progressed to being three-axes of acceleration, and three axis of rotation (technically called gyroscopes).

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An external cage completes one revolution in one minute and fifteen seconds, enabling a rotation on its second axis.

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Christoph Scheiner was one of the discoverers of sunspots and discovered the rotation of the sun on its axis.

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