Solar maximum could hit us harder and sooner than we thought. How dangerous will the sun's chaotic p

[WhiteTara]

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/solar-maximum-could-hit-us-070000837.html

From a distance, the sun may seem calm and steady. But zoom in, and our home star is actually in a perpetual state of flux, transforming over time from a uniform sea of fire to a chaotic jumble of warped plasma and back again in a recurring cycle.

Every 11 years or so, the sun's magnetic field gets tangled up like a ball of tightly wound rubber bands until it eventually snaps and completely flips — turning the north pole into the south pole and vice versa. In the lead-up to this gargantuan reversal, the sun amps up its activity: belching out fiery blobs of plasma, growing dark planet-size spots and emitting streams of powerful radiation.

This period of increased activity, known as solar maximum, is also a potentially perilous time for Earth, which gets bombarded by solar storms that can disrupt communications, damage power infrastructure, harm some living creatures (including astronauts) and send satellites plummeting toward the planet.

And some scientists think the next solar maximum may be coming sooner — and be much more powerful — than we thought.

Originally, scientists predicted that the current solar cycle would peak in 2025. But a bumper crop of sunspots, solar storms and rare solar phenomena suggest solar maximum could arrive by the end of this year at the earliest — and several experts told Live Science we are poorly prepared.

We're always poorly prepared

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

1. Another Carrington Event would probably kill millions

Not directly, but in the resulting chaos of a knocked out power grid, either partial or full.

[WestMichRad]

2. Carrington event

Had to look that up. A fascinating bit of science history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event

You’re right, a direct hit from a coronal mass ejection (CME) could damage a power grid severely. Timed right (or, make that: very wrong), it could be crippling.

We’ve been lucky that CMEs in the last hundred years have not been direct hits on Earth.

[Grokenstein]

3. Ah, the catastrophic event that occurs every eleven years or so.

I remember the last one...no, wait, that's a lie. I don't remember any of them because nothing happened.

Maybe the media covered them up! No, that can't be right, my local news stations have been running special reports about how the Bay Area is well overdue for another massive earthquake every single year for...ooo, thirty years now.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

4. They were able to see the aurora borealis in Cuba during the Carrington Event.

Solar storms are non-trivial.

[WhiteTara]

7. In Cuba?

that's a big wow.

[cstanleytech]

5. What are the actual odds of one hitting us though during a solar maximum?

Are we talking greater than getting hit with a sharknado?

[WhiteTara]

6. I had to think about that for a bit

and perhaps the chances are prolly equal. I'm too far south to see the light show, so I doubt I know much more about it than this.