Spaceweather.com provides news and information about the Sun-Earth connection, with forecasts of solar flares and geomagnetic storms, plus daily images of the Sun showing the number and location of active sunspots. Click the Spaceweather.com header or logo, for news of current space weather activity on Earth and links to other solar activity monitoring websites.
The sunspot group AR 10720 formed as a smallish dot on Jan. 11 2005 and grew to the size of Jupiter by Jan. 15. That's about the size of eight Earth's across!
Spaceweather.com has an impressive collection of aurora photographs sent in by amateur photographers. This photograph comes from the Nov. 5 - 6, 2001 Aurora Gallery. It was taken by A. Klimowski , Rapid City, South Dakota, USA. Click the photograph to go to the Aurora Gallery.

This photograph was featured at Spaceweather.com on 4th April 2006. It was taken by Andy Dodson in New Zealand the day before as solar astronomers were transfixed by this spectacular prominence on the sun.

There are many excellent sources of information about space weather and solar storms, but one of the most comprehensive, non-technical, websites on the subject is Dr. Sten Odenwald's award winning Space Weather website. There is also an excellent book on space weather called The 23rd Cycle: Learning to live with a stormy star. This book is available at this website in its entirety in PDF and searchable text.

"Space weather has been blamed as the cause or contributor to more than $500 million in insurance claims between 1997 and 2001, and in numerous other cases, satellite companies lost some of their capacity and redundancy in mishaps that could not be claimed. Since January 1998, the insurers of satellites have paid more than $3.8 billion for 22 total mission losses and 91 partial losses; uninsured losses over the same period exceeded that amount. In the grimmest of recent years, 1998 and 2000 the value of insurance claims exceeded the amount of money collected in premiums."
Excert from "Storms from the Sun: The Emerging Science of Space Weather (2002).Click on the picture of the book to read the book online. Recommendation BUY!

Space weather generates Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GICs) that affect electrical systems on the earth's surface, including power and power transformer systems. Where the land is resistant, oil and gas pipelines form a system of long conductors that allow electrical currents to flow more easily. With the accumulative action of many magnetic disturbances pipeline corrosion is significantly accelerated. The massive oil spillage that took place in Alaska, March 2006 could have been caused by Space Weather. Click on the image of the BP oil pipeline in Alaska to obtain general information on the ground effects of space weather.

For most people the evolutionary aspect of cosmic energy does not interest them, but cosmic rays interfering with their car electronics is certainly something that would make them pay attention! Car manufacturers are now having to be concerned with the increase of cosmic rays and specifically neutrons from space. As one report puts it, "Neutron-induced firm errors have progressed from being a nuisance to being a significant problem". This folks is the reality of the New Golden Age, things will NOT remain the same. Click here for short article, and click the image for a longer indepth technical review of the situation.

NASA scientists announced that solar activity will start to dramatically increase from 2007 or 2008 and peak in 2012 and be 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), who says "The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one". There was an historic Solar Max in 1958, anything similar will have massive effect on cell phones, GPS, TV Networks, weather satellites and many other modern technologies. Click the Solar Max image for more details of this significant scientific prediction by researchers.

Click the screen image to watch a short clip of the video Danger: Solar Storm Is Earth’s technology safe from the Sun’s fiery flare-ups? It looks like the space community is gearing up for a wild ride with the Sun. We are being warned of the effects of massive solar storms knocking out Earth bound satellites and power supply on Earth. The real question here is: Is your personal energy field & DNA ready to take the heat too?