And there’s a king-sized one out on the Sun:
[AR3088], which didn’t even exist yesterday, is inset in this Solar Dynamics Observatory map of magnetic fields on the sun. According to Hale’s Law, the sunspot’s magnetic poles should be arranged +/-, that is, positive (+) on the left and negative (-) on the right. Instead, they are rotated 90 degrees; positive (+) is on top and negative (-) is on the bottom.
This is a rare “perpendicular sunspot,” with magnetic poles orthogonal to the sun’s equator. What’s going on? Something unusual may be happening to the sun’s magnetic dynamo beneath the surface where this sunspot is growing. We’ll keep an eye on AR3088 to see what happens next. [Spaceweather.com]
Something to keep an eye on. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
