Hi Jen. This always happens around the time of solar maximum. The magnetic poles exchange places at the peak of the sunspot cycle. In fact, it's a good indication that Solar Max is really here.

The Sun will remain with its north magnetic pole pointing through the Sun's southern hemisphere until the year 2012. At this time, they will reverse again. As far as scientists know, the transformation comes at the peak of every 11-year sunspot cycle.

Earth's magnetic field also flips, but with far less regularity than that of the Sun. Earth's transformations are spaced anywhere from 5 thousand years to 50 million years apart. Earth's last reversal was 740,000 years ago. Nobody knows exactly when the next reversal might occur.

Solar and terrestrial magnetic fields do however, share the same shape.

Throughout solar minimum the Sun's field, like Earth's, resembles that of an iron bar magnet, with great closed loops near the equator and open field lines near the poles. This is called a "dipole."

The Sun's dipolar field has the strength of a refrigerator magnet, while Earth's magnetic field is 100 times weaker.

During solar maximum, our star's magnetic field begins to change, creating sunspots. Sunspots are where intense magnetic loops - hundreds of times stronger than the ambient dipole field - poke through the photosphere.

"Meridional flows on the Sun's surface carry magnetic fields from mid-latitude sunspots to the Sun's poles. The poles end up flipping because these flows transport south-pointing magnetic flux to the north magnetic pole, and north-pointing flux to the south magnetic pole."

The dipole field steadily weakens as oppositely-directed flux gathers at the Sun's poles until, at the peak of solar maximum, the magnetic poles change polarity and start to take form in a new direction. Take Care…Don in creepy town

• The Sun