IGUASSU FALLS, Brazil — Fluctuating bursts of microwave energy from the sun could provide imminent warning of the huge solar flares known as coronal mass ejections, new research hints.
During periods of intense solar activity, immense clouds of radiation and charged particles erupt from the sun’s surface. When these coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, strike and envelope Earth, they can disrupt radio communications, overload power grids and zap Earth-orbiting satellites, Pierre Kaufmann, a solar physicist at Mackenzie Presbyterian University in Sao Paulo, Brazil, reported August 9 at the Meeting of the Americas.
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