Just as in the last 4,5 billion years, our Sun is undergoing constant changes in its activity. Thanks to the complex observation techniques and carefully adjusted equipment, we can monitor its surface events.
Events such as CMEs, solar winds, solar energy particles, and solar flares, might be studied and the result used for predictions on what impact they would have on Earth, Moon, Mars, and other relevant celestial bodies.
What is Sun?
Even the least educated human can say that the sun is a fuming, burning ball made mostly of hydrogen and helium, that its diameter is 1,4 million kilometers, and its surface temperature exceeds 10000 degrees Fahrenheit. But what usually only the experts in helioseismology is that the temperature and rotation period is the major substance of the dynamo within the star and that their correlation produces its magnetic field. From there, the solar activities originate, causing the number of sunspots, all different in their magnitude. And that, because the astronomers found suns similar to ours but with five to ten times more variable, they can now calculate the most of forthcoming cosmic events caused by the Sun.
Why the concern?
Looking back at numerous dire astronomic predictions, it is a wonder that we’re still alive! Hundreds of deadly scenarios have been possible, and hundreds more of those that could have critically damaged either orbital or ground technology. And that could have been fatal. Just remember the Chasm!
Although the main worry is yet another X-class solar flare, that could disable plenty of society-preserving mechanisms, there are rarer events that could have even worse influences on races more advanced than humans. The MCE of that magnitude could disable the cloaking devices on planets and space bases exposed to the Red Faction. That could mean inevitable extinction.
Influence of other stars
When EK Draconis (aka ‘the Dragon’ star, a G1.5V yellow dwarf roaming space at the distance of 110,71 light-years from our planet) erupted with a mass ejection in the early 21st century, it wreaked havoc on the stability of the Sun, resulting in a series of CMEs. Today we are aware of 78 suns that could potentially cause a similar course of events sometime in the next two hundred years. The data may sound vague, but on the universal level of probabilities, that comes as highly likely.
Therefore, the scientists urge major power backups and aggregators to sustain the replicators in case of the most undesired outcomes.
