Astronomy is a very minor hobby of mine. I used to do lot of reading about the universe and then I got fixated a bit on studying the sun. I even followed the daily sunspots for years. Sunspots are great magnetic storms on the surface of the sun. These storms are millions of times the size of the earth and they can wreak great havoc on our communication satelites and if bad enough can cause world wide blackouts of the grid. We are just leaving a long solar minimum of 11 years (that seems to be the cycle of sunspots activity) we are now entering a time of high solar activity. If solar flares are bad enough things could really get bad here on our big blue ball...There is a major flare heading towards us right now, in fact. Read the following article:
Los angeles (CBS)
After the initial blast of radiation accompanying the coronal mass ejection (CME) — the first of its magnitude to occur in the new solar cycle of activity — a huge cloud of charged particles is headed toward Earth and is expected likely to arrive on Feb. 17-18.
Among the many potential disasters that can come from a massive CME: disturbances in the planet’s geomagnetic field that may lead to malfunctioning telecom and GPS satellite equipment.
While forecasters predict no major impact on our telecommunications infrastructure, scientists have pointed out the sun is now ramping up ahead of an expected solar maximum around 2013.
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