Scientists Expect Solar Flares in 2013 (BREATHTAKING IMAGES)
Scientists warned over the weekend not only of hotter days ahead but even solar flares amid forecasts that the Sun will wake up from its slumber and start solar flare activities sometime in 2013.
However, they could not predict the days when would such natural phenomenon take place.
One possible time frame suggested by researchers is by May when Solar Cycle 24, would start. However, they said the maximum solar activity would likely begin in the later part of 2013 and last into 2014.
"If you look back in history, many of the previous solar cycles don't have one hump, one maximum, but in fact have two," solar physicist C. Alex Young of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland said over the weekend during a NASA Web cast titled Solar MAX Storm Warning: Effects on the Solar System.
"That's what we think is going to happen. So we've reached one of those humps, and we think that eventual activity will pick back up and we'll see another hump - a double-humped solar maximum," he explained.
Despite the relative inactivity of the sun, on March 15 it spewed a huge cloud called the coronal mass ejection (CME) that sparked a mild geomagnetic storm on Earth but had no series effect on the planet.
While the event could be potential harmful, it also produced stunning and breathtaking solar displays as seen in the following video.
However, more powerful versions of the CME could result in power grids and radio telecommunications being knocked out.