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Climaxing last week, the sun will have unleashed three X-class solar flares. These are the strongest flares of the year so far, and they signal a significant increase in solar activity with more to come. Historically, research has been conducted to link the 11 year cycle of the sun to changes in human behavior and society. Research done in the last hundred years that shows the most malefic effects from solar activity come at the sunspot minima.
Solar flares are intense blooms of radiation that come from the release of the magnetic energy associated with sunspots. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ranks solar flares using five categories from weakest to stongest: A, B, C, M, and X. Each category is 10 times stronger than the one before it. Within each category, a flare is ranked from 1 to 9, according to strength, although X-class flares can go higher than 9. According to NASA, the most powerful solar flare recorded was an X28 (in 2003).
Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are bursts of solar material (clouds of plasma and magnetic fields) that shoot off the sun’s surface. Other solar events include solar wind streams that come from the coronal holes on the Sun and solar energetic particles that are primarily released by CMEs.
What is a Solar Cycle?
The number of sunspots increase and decrease over time in a regular, approximately 11-year cycle, called the solar or sunspot cycle. The exact length of the cycle can vary. More sunspots mean increased solar activity—flares and CMEs. The highest number of sun spots in any given cycle is designated “solar maximum,” while the lowest number is designated “solar minimum.”