Astronomy

The abundance of back-to-back solar events has led scientists to think the sun may have entered its explosive era of peak activity, known as solar maximum — which seems to be starting a year earlier than previous forecasts predicted. However, researchers will have to wait until the sun "calms down" to know for sure.

What we do know is that X-class flares are most common during solar maximum, which is part of the sun's 11-year solar cycle. So far in 2024, seven X-class flares, including the latest one, have burst from the sun, which is already half the number that reached Earth in 2023, Live Science previously reported.

On a long enough timescale, we're gonna be hit by a big one.

I remember like a decade ago they were saying it hits a developed area, it'll blow out all the transformers, and on that scale no country could replace them all for a very long time.