The Atlantic ocean, noting not only that the needle deviated slightly from exact The magnetic compass soon spread to Europe. Well, and around 1000 the Chinese found that such a needle, when freely A steel needle stroked with such a "lodestone" became "magnetic" as Lightning) with the power to attract iron. When that happens, Hoeksema and Scherrer will share the news with their colleagues and the public.The ancient Greeks, originally those near the city of Magnesia, and also the early Chinese knew about strange and rare stones "Soon, however, both poles will be reversed, and the second half of solar max will be underway." "The sun's north pole has already changed sign, while the south pole is racing to catch up," Scherrer said. A wavy, crinkly sheet acts as a better shield against these energetic particles from deep space.Īs the field reversal approaches, data from Wilcox show that the sun's two hemispheres are out of synch. The current sheet acts as a barrier to cosmic rays, deflecting them as they attempt to penetrate the inner solar system. Cosmic rays are a danger to astronauts and space probes, and some researchers say they might affect the cloudiness and climate of Earth. These are high-energy particles accelerated to nearly light speed by supernova explosions and other violent events in the galaxy. Transitions from one side to another can stir up stormy space weather around our planet.Ĭosmic rays are also affected. As Earth orbits the sun, we dip in and out of the current sheet. Scherrer likens the undulations to the seams on a baseball. Electrically speaking, the entire heliosphere is organized around this enormous sheet.ĭuring field reversals, the current sheet becomes very wavy. The current itself is small, only one ten-billionth of an amp per square meter (0.0000000001 amps/m2), but there’s a lot of it: the amperage flows through a region 10,000 km thick and billions of kilometers wide. When solar physicists talk about solar field reversals, their conversation often centers on the "current sheet." The current sheet is a sprawling surface jutting outward from the sun's equator where the sun's slowly rotating magnetic field induces an electrical current. Changes to the field's polarity ripple all the way out to the Voyager probes, on the doorstep of interstellar space. The domain of the sun's magnetic influence (also known as the "heliosphere") extends billions of kilometers beyond Pluto. This is a regular part of the solar cycle."Ī reversal of the sun's magnetic field is, literally, a big event. Solar physicist Phil Scherrer, also at Stanford, describes what happens: "The sun's polar magnetic fields weaken, go to zero and then emerge again with the opposite polarity. Magnetograms at Wilcox have been tracking the sun's polar magnetism since 1976, and they have recorded three grand reversals-with a fourth in the offing. Just as Earth scientists watch our planet's polar regions for signs of climate change, solar physicists do the same thing for the sun. Hoeksema is the director of Stanford's Wilcox Solar Observatory, one of the few observatories in the world that monitors the sun's polar magnetic fields. Half of "solar max" will be behind us, with half yet to come. The coming reversal will mark the midpoint of Solar Cycle 24. It happens at the peak of each solar cycle as the sun's inner magnetic dynamo re-organizes itself. The sun's magnetic field changes polarity approximately every 11 years. "This change will have ripple effects throughout the solar system." "It looks like we're no more than three to four months away from a complete field reversal," said solar physicist Todd Hoeksema of Stanford University. According to measurements from NASA-supported observatories, the sun's vast magnetic field is about to flip. Something big is about to happen on the sun.
(Editor's Note: This story was originally issued August 2013.)