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A Star With Two North Poles
Sometimes the Sun's magnetic field goes haywire, and
the effects are felt throughout the solar system.
by Dr Tony Phillips
www.firstscience.com...
Three years ago, something weird happened to the Sun.
Normally, our star, like Earth itself, has a north and a south magnetic pole. But for nearly a month beginning in March 2000, the Sun's south magnetic pole faded, and a north pole emerged to take its place. The Sun had two north poles.
"It sounds impossible, but it's true," says space physicist Pete Riley of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in San Diego.
"In fact, it's a fairly normal side-effect of the solar cycle." Every 11 years around solar maximum, the Sun's magnetic field goes haywire as the Sun's underlying magnetic dynamo reorganizes itself. The March 2000 event was simply a part of that upheaval.
"The south pole never really vanished," notes Riley. It migrated north and, for a while, became a band of south magnetic flux smeared around the Sun's equator. By May 2000 the south pole had returned to its usual spot near the Sun's southern spin axis - but not for long. In 2001 the solar magnetic field completely flipped; the south and north poles swapped positions, which is how they remain now.
P.S. If you fix the link within the article.. firstscience.com.. for some reason, there are dots in the middle of the com.
Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
I think it would be interesting to find out why the sun does this. There is a lot of weird stuff about the sun.
Originally posted by xSMOKING_GUNx
Is there any record of strange events or behavioral changes around these switches, I wonder?
The human race is uniquely sensitive to magetic fields.
Even though the sun is a long distance away, it's mass being enough to effect the earths solar rotation must mean it's switch would have a bearing on us, at least in some minor fashion.
Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
Well,Smokinggun,one would think. Supposedly sunspots effect the rise and fall of civilizations, so I would think any type of pole reversal on the sun would definitely cause some hopping and popping down here.
source
March 1 - Hans Blix assumes the position of Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC.
United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and continued with the mandate to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction
March 1 - the Constitution of Finland is rewritten. a new, integrated Constitution to come into force on March 1, 2000. The Commission was instructed to draft its proposal for a new Constitution to replace the four existing constitutional laws in the form of a Government bill.
March 10 - The NASDAQ Composite Index reaches an all-time high of 5048.
March 18 - 2000 Taiwanese presidential election: Chen Shui-bian is elected President of the Republic of China
March 26 - Presidential elections in Russia: Vladimir Putin elected President.
Originally posted by xSMOKING_GUNx
Is there any record of strange events or behavioral changes around these switches, I wonder?
Originally posted by xSMOKING_GUNx
Is there any record of strange events or behavioral changes around these switches, I wonder?