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segun la nasa en: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10mar_stormwarning.htm http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10mar_stormwarning.htm March 10, 2006: It's official: Solar minimum has arrived. Sunspots have all but vanished. Solar flares are nonexistent. The sun is utterly quiet. Like the quiet before a storm. This week researchers announced that a storm is coming--the most intense solar maximum in fifty years. The prediction comes from a team led by 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 by looking at the bars on your cell phone; cell phones didn't exist. Even so, people knew something big was happening when Northern Lights were sighted three times in Mexico. A similar maximum now would be noticed by its effect on cell phones, GPS, weather satellites and many other modern technologies. Right: Intense auroras over Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1958. Dikpati's prediction is unprecedented. In nearly-two centuries since the 11-year sunspot cycle was discovered, scientists have struggled to predict the size of future maxima—and failed. Solar maxima can be intense, as in 1958, or barely detectable, as in 1805, obeying no obvious pattern. The key to the mystery, Dikpati realized years ago, is a conveyor belt on the sun. We have something similar here on Earth—the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt, popularized in the sci-fi movie The Day After Tomorrow. It is a network of currents that carry water and heat from ocean to ocean--see the diagram below. In the movie, the Conveyor Belt stopped and threw the world's weather into chaos. Above: Earth's "Great Ocean Conveyor Belt." The sun's conveyor belt is a current, not of water, but of electrically-conducting gas. It flows in a loop from the sun's equator to the poles and back again. Just as the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt controls weather on Earth, this solar conveyor belt controls weather on the sun. Specifically, it controls the sunspot cycle. Solar physicist David Hathaway of the National Space Science & Technology Center (NSSTC) explains: "First, remember what sunspots are--tangled knots of magnetism generated by the sun's inner dynamo. A typical sunspot exists for just a few weeks. Then it decays, leaving behind a 'corpse' of weak magnetic fields." Enter the conveyor belt. "The top of the conveyor belt skims the surface of the sun, sweeping up the magnetic fields of old, dead sunspots. The 'corpses' are dragged down at the poles to a depth of 200,000 km where the sun's magnetic dynamo can amplify them. Once the corpses (magnetic knots) are reincarnated (amplified), they become buoyant and float back to the surface." Presto—new sunspots! Right: The sun's "great conveyor belt." [Larger image] All this happens with massive slowness. "It takes about 40 years for the belt to complete one loop," says Hathaway. The speed varies "anywhere from a 50-year pace (slow) to a 30-year pace (fast)." When the belt is turning "fast," it means that lots of magnetic fields are being swept up, and that a future sunspot cycle is going to be intense. This is a basis for forecasting: "The belt was turning fast in 1986-1996," says Hathaway. "Old magnetic fields swept up then should re-appear as big sunspots in 2010-2011." Like most experts in the field, Hathaway has confidence in the conveyor belt model and agrees with Dikpati that the next solar maximum should be a doozy. But he disagrees with one point. Dikpati's forecast puts Solar Max at 2012. Hathaway believes it will arrive sooner, in 2010 or 2011. "History shows that big sunspot cycles 'ramp up' faster than small ones," he says. "I expect to see the first sunspots of the next cycle appear in late 2006 or 2007—and Solar Max to be underway by 2010 or 2011." Who's right? Time will tell. Either way, a storm is coming. SEND THIS STORY TO A FRIEND http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-63lm4Ht4cg link: http://www.videos-star.com/watch.php?video=-63lm4Ht4cg link: http://www.videos-star.com/watch.php?video=-63lm4Ht4cg bueno les dejo una pequeña interpretacion: año 2010 a 2012 explosiones del sol alcansan a la tierra por un largo periodo nuestro planeta se encuentra sometido a constantes bombardeos de energia. resultado nuestro planeta sufre un ataque en su campo electromagnetico entre otras cosas... segun los cientificos: nadie morira y la tierra estara incomunicada por 2 o 3 dias... realidad posible de este desastre: freirnos como huevos fritos no se pero digo que un 78% que la radioactividad nos mate a todos un 40% que la temperatura de la tierra suba suba y suba... un 50% pulso electromagnetico queme todo lo electronico menos lo de fibra optica 98% posibilidad de desastres naturales en el caso de que el campo de la tierra sufra un atake del sol: 100% desastres naturales conocidos posibles: todos nivel de los desastres; todo el mundo usted deberia pensar que la posibilidad de que muera en estos acontecimientos es de 78% que tan posible es que esto pase? pida informacion a la nasa (esto es del 2006) tenemos que tener miedo?, respuesta: na...., si nos morimos: nos morimos todos y no hay nada que hacer si el maximo es en el 2012 el periodo de riezgo probable es entre 2010 y 2015 que piensan?[/color