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The fact that 2012, the date 2012, is close to 2014 is completely a coincidence.

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This up and coming solar cycle, roughly 2014, isn't going to be significantly different from the next one

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and the next one, and then the previous one.

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The sun is what we call and active star, and it has a cycle of activity.

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Over 11 years, we go to higher activity and back down to lower activity.

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So, this 11 years is fairly steady, and it has been happening through time as far as we can tell.

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And we always have solar flares. Some times we have big ones, some times we have small ones.

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We live on a planet with a very thick atmosphere.

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So, that atmosphere stops all of the harmful radiation that is produced in a solar flare.

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Even in the largest events that we've seen in the past 10,000 years,

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we see that the effect is not enough to damage the atmosphere so that we are no longer protected.

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Coronal mass ejections are happening on the sun all the time.

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And they hit the Earth once or twice a week,

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sometimes more,

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and in general, the effects are minimal.

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If we have a really big one, we can have a really strong aurora.

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But, then it can effect satellites and power grids,

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and these are the kinds of things that people who run these systems know about.

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And we have warning.

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These CMEs travel at speeds that mean they take probably 2-3 days to get here.

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We've learned more and more about storms.

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We've learned how to better predict the effects.

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Where they are going to go. Where they are going to hit.

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As long as we continue paying attention to it and learning more about it,

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treating it like we treat a hurricane coming or a huge thunderstorm coming,

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we can take appropriate measures to prepare for them.

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We understand the sun well enough

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with all the technology and all the science

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and all of the many spacecraft we have that are monitoring it 24 hours a day,

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7 days a week. to know that this stuper storm that's going to wipe out the Earth simply isn't going to happen.

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