The Sun is about to flip out.
Its magnetic field is set to do a complete 180, changing poles as the nurturer of all life on Earth reaches the halfway point of "solar maximum".
Should you start digging a shelter in your garden? Well, not quite.
The phenomenon happens around every 11 years as the Sun reaches the peak of its solar cycle.
Physicist Phil Scherrer soothed our terrified minds and said: "The sun's polar magnetic fields weaken, go to zero, and then emerge again with the opposite polarity.
"This is a regular part of the solar cycle."
That's not to say is isn't a significant event. The sun's heliosphere - the domain of its magnetic influence - extends far out beyond Pluto in what scientists refer to as a "sheet".
A flip in the magnetic field causes ripples in this. As the Earth passes in and out of the sheet "stormy space weather" can occur around our planet.
Scherrer and fellow physicists have been monitoring the Sun from Stanford University's Wilcox Solar Observatory and expect the flip to happen in around three to four months.
He said: "The sun's north pole has already changed sign, while the south pole is racing to catch up.
"Soon, however, both poles will be reversed, and the second half of Solar Max will be underway."
Amazing Space Photos
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JPL-Caltech / NASA

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Podcast: Acceleration Secrets of the Van Allen Radiation Belts

Wednesday, August 07, 2013
Looking up at the night sky, our eyes can see stars and planets and other distant objects. This transparency sometimes gives the impression that Earth is surrounded by emptiness. In reality, the area around our planet is teeming with activity.
This week on the podcast I talk with astrophysicist Geoff Reeves about some of the activities going on just above our heads; specifically, the acceleration of particles in a region known as the Van Allen radiation belts.  Extending from as low as 60 miles, to as high as 60,000 miles above the surface of the Earth, the Van Allen belts are regions of high-energy, fast moving particles, that follow the lines of the Earth's magnetic fields (so they look like a donut-shaped shell around the earth).
NASA/Van Allen Probes/Goddard Space Flight Center
The belts have caused problems for humans in the last few decades, as they can occasionally damage satellites, particularly during solar storms (when the sun sends even more high energy particles careening toward us).

Scientists have been interested in understanding how the particles in the Van Allen belts are accelerated, in hopes of one day being able to predict when and where the belts will be most harmful to satellites. In 2012 NASA launched the Van Allen Space Probes to study these peculiar regions. In the July issue of the journal Science, Reeves and a group of colleagues published an analysis of some of the earliest data sent back by the Probes. The results confirm the presence of a previously unobserved mechanism for accelerating the particles.

Listen to the podcast to find out what Reeves and colleagues uncovered, and what it tells us about the universe.
Posted by Agent Utah