By ANDY FLEMING
Throughout history, humanity has steadily
increased its dependence upon technology. Although technology has vastly
improved the quality of life for billions of people, it has also opened us up
to new risks and vulnerabilities. Terrorism and natural disasters might be at
the forefront of the minds of policymakers and the public, but a significant
threat lurks over our heads: the sun. A massive solar storm, the size last seen
a century and a half ago, could easily leave hundreds of millions of people in
the dark for days, weeks or even months.
The sun follows a roughly 11-year cycle of activity,
measured by the number of sunspots on its surface. The solar maximum - when
sunspot activity peaks, with a corresponding increase in solar flares and
billion-ton blobs of magnetic field-generating solar plasma known as coronal
mass ejections (CMEs) launched from the sun's surface - is forecast to occur
later this year.
Original Source: American Geophysical Union
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