Life: Dispatch: News from Nature, the international journal of science: Solar hiccups flip the sun's poles
Posted on: Thursday, 27 November 2003, 06:00 CST
Solar hiccupping might cause the periodic flips observed in the sun's magnetic field, say researchers.
Every 11 years or so, the solar magnetic field reverses and the poles switch places. The last switch happened in 1999. The flipping field has no effect on life in the solar system, but has intrigued physicists as a potential clue to the sun's inner workings.
Nat Gopalswamy of the Nasa God dard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland, says the old magnetic field is blown away by polar storms called coronal mass ejections. "It's like a snake shedding its skin," he adds. The switch happens just after the ejections peak, he and his team write in the Astrophysical Journal.
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