Abstract
MEASUREMENTS of the general (polar) magnetic field of the Sun1 show that since September 1964 the Sun has behaved on average like a dipole with a negative field strength at the North Pole and an approximately equal positive field at the South Pole (the mean ranging from 0.5 to 1.0 G). But because of a bias toward the area of the negative polarity in the northern hemisphere, the net magnetic flux was on average negative most of the time; in this sense the Sun behaved like a “monopole”. There were large deviations from the mean, however; for example, sometimes both poles had a field of the same sign (in February–April 1965), and during the first half of 1964 the mean strength at the South Pole was zero.
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References
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Dodson, H. W., and Hedeman, E. R., IAU Symp. No.35 Structure and Development of Solar Active Regions, 56 (D. Reidel Pub. Co., 1968).
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SEVERNY, A. Is the Sun a Magnetic Rotator?. Nature 224, 53–54 (1969). https://doi.org/10.1038/224053a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/224053a0
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