Quote Originally Posted by killerweed420
God doesn't have anything to do with this but its certainly going to be an interesting 4 or 5 years. With the solar maximum arriving at the same time the galaxy alignment is happening its going to cause even more gravitational disturbances. If it even comes close to the solar actitvity in 1859 its going to be a wild ride. If its like 1859 we will lose virtually every electronic device on the planet and in space. I would not want to be in the space lab for the next few years.
I think that since this cycle has started so late it is not going to be one of the record setters. The press is simply freaking out because the scientists right now are so excited to see activity finally. I'm not sure that the galaxy aligning is going to affect the sun's output... but we really don't know yet do we? Face it... we are still babies. We think we are so smart... but we have only been playing with electricity for 100 years or so. We still have much to learn.

As far as loosing devices on the planet... this is one of the primary advantages of having an atmosphere. I agree that during a solar peak I wouldn't want to be in skylab, but the sun has been doing this for a long long time. If we couldn't handle it here on earth, we wouldn't be here.
Go to that website I referenced earlier and look at the historical solar flux charts. The peaks in 1779 and 1829 were indeed impressive, but dwarfed by the one we had in 1958. Maybe that explains all those wrinkles you see on old people today? We may never know.

Emmie