Sun Flips Its Polarity

grasshopper69 writes: "This CNN article talks about how the sun has recently reversed its polarity, which apparently is an occurence every 11 years. This flipping indicates a time of 'solar max' during which the sun will incur more frequent sun spots and eruptions, causing solar flares, which could mean trouble for planet Earth." No one is sure why Earthly magnetic flips are so less regular, either, but all those migrating birds on the sun must be used to it already.

Comments

Ice Ages cause the Earth to flip.

[Crutcher]

The flipping of the earth's magnetic field is pretty well understood:

Ice Ages, and thaws, affect the distribution of mass upon the surface of the plannet just enough to affect the spin rate. Changes in the spin rate disrupt the coriolis induced iron magma currents in the core, which are the primary cause of earth's large magnetic field, and the field collapses into chaos.

When these currents stabilize, having adjusted to the new spin rate, the field becomes coherent again. The polarity of the field when it reaserts is a toss up.

So, when people talk about the earth 'flipping' its polarity, they often overlook that about 1/2 the time, the polarity after a reasert is the same as it was before the field collapsed.



-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>

"Sun Flips Its Polarity"

[babbage]

So they're going to abandon Java & embrace .NET?