As sunspots emerge on the sun's surface close to its equator, their orientations will match the old magnetic field, while sunspots forming closer to the poles will have a magnetic field matching the ...

The shift in polarity marks the point at which the sun is halfway through solar maximum, the height of its activity, and the beginning of the shift toward solar minimum. The sun's magnetic field ...

Could the expected solar flares bring a greater chance of seeing the northern lights? Sophia Herod takes a look.

As the time line at right shows, hundreds of times in our planet's history the polarity of the magnetic shield ensheathing the globe has gone from "normal," our current orientation to the north ...