THE SUN AND MAGNETISM

It is widely believed that the Sun's magnetic field is generated by electrical currents acting as a magnetic dynamo inside the Sun. These electrical currents are generated by the flow of hot, ionized gases in the Sun's convection zone.

We know a lot about the Sun's magnetic dynamo. It has a 22 year cycle. During the first half of the cycle, the Sun's magnetic north pole is in the northern hemisphere while the magnetic south pole is in the southern hemisphere. Right around the peak of the sunspot cycle (solar maximum), the magnetic poles flip or exchange places so that magnetic north is now located in the southern hemisphere. This flip occurs about every 11 years at solar maximum.

The 22 year magnetic cycle greatly influences the most prominent manifestation of the dynamo, sunspots and active regions, which migrate towards the solar equator from high latitudes over the course of the solar 11 year "sunspot cycle". Sunspots and Active Regions are manifestation of the magnetic field generated in the Sun's interior poking through the visible region of the atmosphere. Active regions are responsible for the production of intense and violent energy burst, called flares, and events where very large amounts of hot gas, trapped by the magnetic field of the active region, are released from the Sun's atmosphere and into space, called coronal mass ejections (CMEs).