Solar storms wreak havoc on tech, but scientists have a new way to predict them

The sun periodically releases magnetic energy in the form of powerful flares and plasma ejections. The light from these solar explosions can reach Earth as quickly as eight minutes after they occur.

Astronomers have tracked sunspots for around four hundred years, giving scientists an enormous set of data to work with. In fact, sunspot tracking is the longest scientific experiment in history. The team found they could forecast the amplitude of a cycle from data on the rate of growth in sunspot activity during the first or ‘ascending’ phase of that cycle.: ‘We can predict the cycle amplitude continuously over the development of the ascending phase of a solar cycle and update the prediction when the latest value of the growth rate is larger than the previous one.’

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