How does the sun's 11 year magnetic clock work?

Answer 1

Quick explanation.

The solar magnetic field (as generated by the solar dynamo) begins as a polodial field (goes top to bottom through the poles). Most of the Sun is in a force-free field, so the plasma follows right along the magnetic field lines.

The Sun isn't a solid body - it rotates differentially, so it takes the poles about 28 days to make a rotation, but it takes the equator about 32 days to make a rotation. So as time goes on, the field lines get distorted more near the poles than near the equator.

The field lines (after a few years of differential rotation) become so mixed up and twisted that they begin to protrude from the Sun in loops, which appear as sunspots in whitelight images and coronal loops in ultraviolet images. Remember, the plasma follows the field.

As the cycle progresses, the sunspots first appeared at high latitudes, and then migrate to towards the equator. As they meet at the equator (those from the different hemispheres), the fields cancel each other out, and reform the polodial field. This takes about 11 years.

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Answer 2

The sun's interior is a seething, super-hot plasma that generates its magnetic field. That interior plasma rotates at different speeds though, and that causes the magnetic fields to become twisted and knotted. Where the magnetic fields are most distorted sun spots occur. Eventually the stresses on the tortured magnetic fields become high enough and they "snap," and sun spot activity decreases. Each cycle takes about 11 years.

Answer 3

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