“You can’t tell by looking, but scientists say the Sun has just undergone an important change. Our star’s magnetic field has flipped.The Sun’s magnetic north pole, which was in the northern hemisphere just a few months ago, now points south. It’s a topsy-turvy situation, but not an unexpected one.The Sun’s magnetic poles will remain as they are now, with the north magnetic pole pointing through the Sun’s southern hemisphere, until the year 2012 when they will reverse again. This transition happens, as far as we know, at the peak of every 11-year sunspot cycle -- like clockwork.” David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight Center, February 15, 2001