Recent analyses using suprathermal electrons as sensors of true magnetic polarity indicate that the steady‐state concepts of the heliospheric current sheet and its encasing plasma sheet often break down at solar wind time scales of less than a day owing to transient and turbulent effects. These create magnetic configurations with localized current and plasma sheets and sometimes cause the current to split off from the surface separating fields of true opposite polarity. © 2003 American Institute of Physics