Feb. 26, 2008 An international group of astronomers that
includes the University of Hawaii's Evgenya Shkolnik have
discovered that the sun-like star tau Bootis flipped its
magnetic field from north to south sometime during the last
year. It has been known for many years that the Sun's magnetic
field changes its direction every 11 years, but this is the
first time that such a change has been observed in another star.
The team of astronomers, who made use of Canada-France-Hawaii
Telescope atop Mauna Kea, are now closely monitoring tau Bootis
to see how long it will be before the magnetic field reverses
again. Magnetic field reversals on the sun are closely linked to
the varying number of sunspots seen on the sun's surface. The
last "solar minimum," the time when number of sunspots was the
lowest and the magnetic flip occurred, was in 2007. The first
sunspot of the new cycle appeared just last month. The magnetic
cycle of the Sun impacts the Earth's climate and is believed to
have caused the little ice age in th