Cancel

gear Push settings

bars

homehome Home chatchat Notifications


Solar flare causing some major trouble

As we were telling you recently, the biggest solar flare in the last 4 years is upon us, and while this doesn’t pose any direct danger for us, but the flare is making an impact throughout the world. Radio communications were disrupted, especially in China, but concern was generated everywhere throughout the world. However, experts […]

Mihai Andrei
February 18, 2011 @ 8:22 am

share Share

As we were telling you recently, the biggest solar flare in the last 4 years is upon us, and while this doesn’t pose any direct danger for us, but the flare is making an impact throughout the world. Radio communications were disrupted, especially in China, but concern was generated everywhere throughout the world.

However, experts say the Sun has just given us a hint of what it can really do, and things could have been much worse; a truly massive storm could wreak havok on a global scale. Speaking of massive storms, the sun has been pretty quiet during this cycle – but that doesn’t necessarily mean a big one is coming just yet. But it doesn’t mean that it’s not coming, either.

“Even if this is a really lackluster solar cycle — as it looks like it’s shaping up to be — that doesn’t mean you can’t have a real bell-ringing event,” said Joe Gurman of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, project scientist for the agency’s sun-studying STEREO spacecraft.

share Share

The Sun Will Annihilate Earth in 5 Billion Years But Life Could Move to Jupiter's Icy Moon Europa

When the Sun turns into a Red Giant, Europa could be life's final hope in the solar system.

A Massive Particle Blasted Through Earth and Scientists Think It Might Be The First Detection of Dark Matter

A deep-sea telescope may have just caught dark matter in action for the first time.

Scientists Used Lasers To Finally Explain How Tiny Dunes Form -- And This Might Hold Clues to Other Worlds

Decoding how sand grains move and accumulate on Earth can also help scientists understand dune formation on Mars.

Astronomers Claim the Big Bang May Have Taken Place Inside a Black Hole

Was the “Big Bang” a cosmic rebound? New study suggests the Universe may have started inside a giant black hole.

Astronomers Just Found the Most Powerful Cosmic Event Since the Big Bang. It's At Least 25 Times Stronger Than Any Supernova

The rare blasts outshine supernovae and reshape how we study black holes.

Terraforming Mars Might Actually Work and Scientists Now Have a Plan to Try It

Can we build an ecosystem on Mars — and should we?

New Simulations Suggest the Milky Way May Never Smash Into Andromeda

A new study questions previous Milky Way - Andromeda galaxy collision assumptions.

China Is Building The First AI Supercomputer in Space

China wants to turn space satellites into a giant cloud server.

China and Russia Plan to Build a Nuclear Power Plant on the Moon by 2035 Leaving the US Behind

A new kind of space race unfolds on the moon's south pole.

A Decade After The Martian, Hollywood’s Mars Timeline Is Falling Apart

NASA hasn’t landed humans on Mars yet. But thanks to robotic missions, scientists now know more about the planet’s surface than they did when the movie was released.