The Sun Is Now Heading Into the Peak of Its 11 Year Cycle

(M-Class Flare Ejected July 4, 2012)

NASA, along with numerous independent agencies like EMPact America have warned about it for years – the possibility of a solar storm so massive that it knocks out satellite communications and GPS, the power grid and a host of other electronic devices that could wreak havoc across the globe.

As we approach the 2013 solar cycle peak, researchers say that activity on the sun is heating up, with solar flares being ejected regularly and with increasing strength. The most recent was an “X” class flare last Friday.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spotted the summer’s first ‘X’ solar flare on Friday – a huge outburst from the sun right at the top of the scale.

This came on the back of 12 ‘M’ flares in just six days, with a M6.1 flare knocking out radio signals across the planet on Thursday – hinting at the destruction the sun could reign on our technology if Earth takes a full blast across its blow.

The sunspot group behind the flares – named as AR1515 – stretches across 118,681 miles (191,000km) of the sun’s surface.

This makes it’s width more than 15 Earths set end to end, said NASA solar astrophysicist C. Alex Young.

The biggest flares are known as ‘X-class flares’ based on a classification system that divides solar flares according to their strength.

The smallest ones are A-class, which are similar to normal background levels, followed by B, C, M and X.

Similar to the Richter scale for earthquakes, each letter represents a 10-fold increase in energy output, meaning an X is ten times an M and 100 times a C.

The sun is now heading into the peak of its 11-year solar flare cycle, with 2013 expected to the tumultuous year.

With the increased spread in communications in the last 11 years, a sever solar storm could cause huge issues for the planet.

Source: Daily Mail

A powerful enough solar flare – in the high ‘X’ Class range – ejected in the right direction could send millions in the developed world backed to the stone age.

In 1989 a solar flare left six million residents of Quebec, Canada in the dark . The 1859 Super Flare commonly known as the Carrington Event, the power of which can only be estimated because measurements were not taken at the time, took down the telegraph communications infrastructure with some reports indicating that telegraph machines actually caught on fire from the surge. It was so powerful that Aurorae were witnessed as far south as the Caribbean, suggesting it was an extreme magnitude X class (or beyond) solar flare.

Researchers have suggested that such a flare making contact with the earth today could completely alter life as we know it on this planet – with one estimate indicating that some 90% of the population would die within a year if the entire power grid and communications infrastructure were to collapse.