The sun's magnetic field will be reversing in the next four or five months, a process that "will have ripple effects throughout the solar system" according to NASA, but what does all that mean for Earth?
The magnetic field will reportedly reverse by the end of this year, and the sun's north pole has already changed its sign from negative to positive according to Todd Hoeksema, a physicist at Stanford University.
"It looks like we're no more than three to four months away from a complete field reversal," said Hoeksema, the director of Stanford University's Wilcox Solar Observatory, said in a press statement. "This change will have ripple effects throughout the solar system."
Don't expect anything too drastic too occur on Earth however, and the magnetic flip doesn't even happen all at once according to NASA.
"It's a long, slow process, and in fact it has already begun," said Stanford solar physicist Phil Scherrer to The Los Angeles Times.
The sun's south pole will also change its sign soon and the reversal of magnetic fields will "signal the midpoint of Solar Cycle 24" according to Hoeksema.
Solar Cycle's occur once every 11 years and happens natural according to SPACE.com. During the solar cycle, the number of sunspots increases, which is called Solar Maximum, and decreases, which is called Solar Minimum.
The sun is currently at its Solar Maximum phase according to NASA. The sun's magnetic field creates a "current sheet" that comes from its equator and stretches for millions of miles, well beyond Pluto according to Scherrer.
"The sun's north pole has already changed sign, while the south pole is racing to catch up," Scherrer said. "Soon, however, both poles will be reversed, and the second half of solar max will be underway."
NASA described the sheet as "a sprawling surface jutting outward from the sun's equator where the sun's slowly rotating magnetic field induces an electrical current" in a press statement.
Most experts had predicted the peak of Solar Max to take place earlier than usual in its cycle, sometime at the beginning of 2013, but they now believe we're going through a double peak, which will take place likely in December or early 2014.
The current cycle started in 2008, and scientists still aren't sure why the process takes 11 years to complete.
"It is believed that it is just this big oscillating magnetic dynamo and this whole chain of events just takes time," Scherrer said, "But when you make a model of it, you don't actually manage to come up with an 11-year cycle unless you have a lot of free parameters."
Astronomers monitor the sun's poles year round to check if any changes have occurred. Their latest data did show the flipping of the sun's magnetic field should take place around December.
Scherrer also said the current solar maximum is the weakest in 100 years according to SPACE.com.
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