Space Weather Swings Between Extreme Effects | Wired Science | Wired.com

Space Weather Swings Between Extreme Effects | Wired Science | Wired.com: Roughly every 11 years, headlines announce the peak of a natural variation known as�the solar cycle, pointing to a proliferation of sunspots, potentially dangerous solar flares and beautiful aurora.

This period of increased activity is known as solar maximum, the latest of which is predicted to arrive in August.�But scientists who study the sun say that we should be paying just as much attention to the sun’s calmer periods.

Warning: Solar Proton Event Could Fry Earth | Pakalert Press

Warning: Solar Proton Event Could Fry Earth | Pakalert Press: Tight-lipped heliologists are studying the sun more intently than they ever have―as if their lives depended on it. And well it may. In fact, everyone’s lives may depend on just what the sun does during the last part of the current solar cycle, a cycle that NASA and the ESA spent the past 5 years warning governments and the people of Earth to prepare for in advance. Few heeded their warnings. Now some solar scientists, studying the history of solar proton event (SPE) mass extinctions see a pattern emerging that leads them to wonder if another such event is building. Most try hard not to think about it too much, although it may be haunting them in tortured dreams