Relativistic rotation visualization

[Shadow]

Say I have a sphere that's rotating with an angular velocity aproaching that of the speed of light. What would it look like to an outside observer?

[md65536]

I've looked this up a couple times and never found anything. I know I've seen animations of deformed turning gears, sometime in the past, but can't find them now. (Not quite as popular as "me dancing to popular song" videos, for some reason.)

 

Here's what I think:

- It'll look spherical.

- The surface will look deformed and stretched. If you're not looking from above its pole, the side that is turning toward you should look stretched, and the side that's turning away from you should look squished. So the whole surface should look like it's being pulled or scrunched toward the side that's rotating away from you.

- I *think* it would look the same size???

This (skip to 5min mark):

suggests that you would see a smaller portion of the surface than "usual", or is this only when the observer is moving, not just the sphere?

 

This:

(vs. a similar but non-relativistic:

) suggests the opposite.

 

Hopefully someone can give better answers.

Edited March 22, 2013 by md65536