Acoording to Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). "The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one," she says. If correct, the years ahead could produce a burst of solar activity second only to the historic Solar Max of 1958.
That was a solar maximum. The Space Age was just beginning: Sputnik was launched in Oct. 1957 and Explorer 1 (the first US satellite) in Jan. 1958. In 1958 you couldn't tell that a solar storm was underway because there were no cell phone internet and other digital devices. Even so, people knew something big was happening when Northern Lights were sighted three times in Mexico.
At its angriest, the Sun can vomit forth tides of electromagnetic radiation and charged matter known as coronal mass ejections, or CMES. The CMES charges could knock out vital electronics on the blue planet.
Another one of the side effects of solar max are super-charged protons, or flares, from the sun that could hit the earth "in just minutes," It's not just satellites that are prone to solar attack, but also "power lines, data connections, and even oil and gas pipelines.
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