What Will Happen When the Sun’s Magnetic Poles Reverse?

universetoday.com ^ | August 6, 2013 | by Nancy Atkinson on

[BenLurkin]

The flip-flopping of the Sun’s magnetic field takes place at the peak of each solar activity cycle when the Sun’s internal magnetic dynamo reorients itself. When the field reversal happens, the magnetic field weakens, then dies down to zero before emerging again with a reversed polarity.

While this is not a catastrophic event, the reversal will have effects, said solar physicist Todd Hoeksema, the director of Stanford University’s Wilcox Solar Observatory, who monitors the Sun’s polar magnetic fields. “This change will have ripple effects throughout the Solar System,” he said.

[BenLurkin]

I was hoping for Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes... Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

[clamper1797]

We are all gonna DIE !!!!!

[Bryanw92]

When you are hiking on the Sun, your compass will be backwards.

[Tijeras_Slim]

All your paperclips will coil in the opposite direction.

[Northern Yankee]

Maybe Obama will become more white than black?

[Zeneta]

So, the Sun’s “Solar Activity” has a long history that runs in 11 year cycles.

What happened last time would be a good start in answering the question.

Pop Science journalism.

[cripplecreek]

Grizzlysharks!

[Larry Lucido]

Won’t matter. It all looks the same anyway.

[smokingfrog]

[762X51]

Sun toilets will swirl in the opposite direction.

[onedoug]

It happens on Earth too.

[OldNavyVet]

From "Darwin's Ghost" by Steve Jones, we have ...

The atlas of the past has many surprises ... The key is in the Earth's magnetic fields. Every few hundred thousand years, what was the North Pole becomes the South until the poles reverse once more in their endless dance."

Page 252.

[cripplecreek]

[BenLurkin]

Cool!

[TruthWillWin]

The sky is falling, the sky is falling.... Chicken Little

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

You’ll have to turn the batteries around in all your remotes.

[Conspiracy Guy]

I will have to use white out on my compass and remark north, south, east, west. Crap.

[Sacajaweau]

Is global warming causing this??

I knew it!!

[BenLurkin]

Excellent, the next SyFy movie. Hopefully they will cast Tara Reid....

[Errant]

Ain't saying...