Most of us the sun is a steady never changing source of heat and light. But to

scientists it's a dynamic star constantly in flux sending energy out into space.

Right now experts say it's in its most active period in two decades.

For us, Earthlings, the signs of that are likely to be more vivid northern lights or aurora

is visible over a wider area than usual and perhaps disruptions to radio

and satellite communications. The person in charge of coordinating the

government's response to these potential disruptions is Bill Merta. He's program coordinator for NOAA's Space Weather

Prediction Center. So Bill, help us understand this. Peak activity for the solar

cycle, help us break that down. Activity, what's going on? What's the

activity? So the sun is, it's like the earth in one way. It's got, it's a big

magnet. It's got a North Pole and a South Pole, a negative and a positive

polarity.

But the sun does something a little bit weird.

Over the course of 11 years, it does a reversal of the polarity.

The sun is a big ball of electrically charged gas turning and rotating and as this rotation happens,

the magnetic fields turn and twist and essentially it's a rotation of that magnetic field over that 11 year period.

All right in the middle of that process, these sunspots emerge and

their localized magnetic stress areas on the sun that can produce these big eruptions.

And when the eruptions occur, solar flares, coronal mass ejections, energetic particle events,

they all blast material or energy and radiation towards the earth

and can affect a lot of the different technologies we rely on for everything we do.

And it just happens that right now,

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