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Is Our Volcanic Star Losing Its Mojo?
“Our star might be experiencing a magnetic midlife crisis. What implications does this have for the star itself, or for life on Earth?”
WHO asks if our star is losing its mojo?
A recent article titled “The Sun’s Magnetic Field is Behaving Oddly” [Savitsky, 2026] explores this question by comparing our Sun to other stars.
However, the article contains some inaccuracies, starting with its premise. How can a star considered to be at the “center” of a distribution of spin rates be deemed an “outlier”? This seems consistent with the idea that the Sun is the “typical star,” unless the distribution is strongly bimodal, and the Sun lies in a minimum between two peaks. While this is possible, it’s not explicitly stated in the article.
The article also claims that data necessitates a reevaluation of how stars spin and generate magnetic fields. However, spinning alone doesn’t generate magnetic fields. Instead, the magnetic dynamo results from internal overturning motions that transport heat outward from the deep nuclear fusion furnace, as dynamo models suggest [Wikipedia].
The article also suggests that stars undergo a “magnetic crisis” during which their large-scale magnetic fields begin to “wane”. That sounds more like the natural trend of increasing entropy as concentrated energy…
