Posted on 12/30/2013 9:48:19 AM PST by Farnsworth
The sun is flipping its poles!
Actually, NASA reports that this phenomenon happens about 11 years, when the sun's vast magnetic field flips.
"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. "This change will have ripple effects throughout the solar system."
A video shows how the sun will complete the reversal, which appens at the peak of each solar cycle as the sun's inner magnetic dynamo re-organizes. The current "flip" is the midway point of Solar Cycle 24, NASA said.
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. The poles are a herald of change. Just as Earth scientists watch our planet's polar regions for signs of climate change, solar physicists do the same thing for the sun. 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.
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. This is a regular part of the solar cycle."
A reversal of the sun's magnetic field is, literally, a big event. The domain of the sun's magnetic influence (also known as the "heliosphere") extends billions of kilometers beyond Pluto. Changes to the field's polarity ripple all the way out to the Voyager probes, on the doorstep of interstellar space.
Or as they say in Ireland, "haych".
Will it make fags go back in the closet?
Just like a few years back National Geographic announced that the temprature on Mars had gone up....gee, what does mars and the Earth have in common????
I guess SUV’s and CFC’s
Just remember me fondly and make a ton. Way back before everyone really knew how bad Aids was I joked about marketing a Aids test that would have just been litmus paper. I believe that God was watching out for me so that I never got serious. Something like that would follow you forever!
I would say so
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.