Sun to flip its magnetic field

Nov. 12 (UPI) -- The sun is about to complete an 11-year cycle and completely flip its magnetic field, with researchers saying that it will have no visible impact on humans.

Sunspots -- areas of particular magnetic intensity -- near the sun's equator start to disintegrate, causing their magnetic activity to leave the equator and move toward the poles, eroding any magnetic fields in their path.

The magnetic field gradually recedes towards zero, then rebounds in the opposite polarity.

"It's kind of like a tide coming in or going out," said Todd Hoeksema, a solar physicist at Stanford University. "Each little wave brings a little more water in, and eventually you get to the full reversal."

While the internal mechanism that causes this to occur is not completely understood by scientists the process is linked to sunspots as mentioned above. While this reversal won't affect us on a human-level it will have a ripple effect across the solar system and cause disruptions in the Earth's magnetic field.

"The Earth's magnetic field is really important for lots of technological systems, things like power distribution grids, things like global positioning satellites, prospecting, that sort of thing," Hoeksema said.