The sun’s magnetic field is flipping, here is why…

The sun is reaching its solar maximum (peak activity) and is verging on a magnetic field reversal. this is a surprisingly regular event, happening about every 11 years and marks an important stage in the solar cycle as it indicates the midpoint of the solar maximum, which is forecasted to happen around late 2024 to early 2026. The solar cycle itself is controlled by the magnetic field of the sun and can be observed via the frequency and intensity of sunspots (where the magnetic field is about 2,500x stronger than that of earth’s, which causes areas of low atmospheric pressure in their surroundings). However, there is a lesser known cycle that encompasses two of these 11-year solar cycles known as the ‘Hale cycle’. It is within this cycle that the sun’s angelic field reverses and reverts to its original polarity.

So how does the magnetic field affect the solar minimums and maximums?

Well, during the solar minimum, the sun has a magnetic field configuration much like Earth, known as a dipolar magnetic field. This means it has a clearer north and South Pole, however, when the sun reaches a solar maximum, the difference between the two poles becomes ambiguous and more complex as it looses its North/South separation. By the time maximum has ended, the poles have switched and has returned to a dipole configuration. This time, the switch will be to the southern magnetic field in the Northern hemisphere and Northern magnetic field in the Southern hemisphere, very similar to Earth’s magnetic field.

But what causes this change?

In short, it’s the work of sunspots. these are magnetically complex regions o the solar surface that are also responsible for CMEs (coronal mass ejections) and solar flares. Duing a solar maximum, there are a large number of them visible at mid-latitudes, whereas at a solar minimum, they are found in very small numbers around the solar equator, this mans that they will have an orientation matching the the previous magnetic field. 

At a solar maximum with the sunspots around mid-latitudes, their magnetic field will match the incoming magnetic orientation. This is also known as Hale’s law. Todd Hoeksema, a solar physicist from the Wilcox Solar observatory at Stanford University explains, "The magnetic field from active regions makes its way toward the poles and eventually causes the reversal." However, there is still a lot of mystery in the underlining cause of such a flip in polarity. Another Stanford solar physicist, Phill Scherrer commented, “We still don't have a really self-consistent mathematical description of what's happening. And until you can model it, you don't really understand it — it's hard to really understand it." to that Hoeksema added, “Are there going to be many sunspots? And are the sunspots going to contribute to the magnetic field of the pole, or are they going to kind of cancel locally That question we don't yet know how to answer." This is because it really depends on were the magnetic field comes from.

It is important to note that the switch is not instantaneous and is a very gradual transition from dipole to complex to reversed dipole. Ryan French, a solar astrophysicist said, “there is no specific 'moment' in which the sun's poles flip. It's not like the Earth, where the flip is measured by the migration of the North/South pole.". But we do know that it takes about 2 years for a complete polarity reversal, but even that can vary significantly! Solar cycle 24 (ending in December 2019) took about 5 years to fully reverse according to the National Solar Observatory. Due to the gradua nature of this phenomenon, we wont notice any direct changes, but we are feeling some side effects of the increased solar activity. it was a huge coronal mass ejection that caused the strong geomagnetic storms that lit up our skies in aurora displays last month. Although, there are some beneficial side effects that happen due to the magnetic field shift, such as the shielding of our planet from high energy subatomic particles, called cosmic rays, that due to their near light-speed velocity, can damage pacecraft and astronauts on EVAs. This is because as the magnetic field shifts the ‘current sheet’ which is a surface that radiates billions of miles from the sun’s equator, where the slowly rotating magnetic field induces a very small electrical current (0.0000000001 amps/m2) becomes very wavy and acts as a barrier to cosmic rays from deep space.