“The domain of the sun‘s magnetic influence (also known as the ‚heliosphere‘) extends billions of kilometers beyond Pluto. Changes to the field‘s polarity ripple all the way out to the Voyager probes, on the doorstep of interstellar space,” Phillips explained.

NASA has released a visualization of how the switch occurs. Beginning in 1997 and ending in 2013, it shows the green (positive) polarity switching with the purple (negative) polarity.