The sun’s magnetic field flips every 11 years, and it’s about to do it again. As reported on Unknowncountry.com it last flipped on February 15, 2001, as the previous solar max reached its height. The complete field reversal is 3 to 4 months away. The shift will mark the midpoint of Solar Max 24, which has been one of the quietest on record. However, quiet solar maximums tend to produce fewer but more intense solar storms, as happened a few weeks ago when a huge coronal mass ejection was sent into space.read more

NASA has finally decided to try to do something about dangerous asteroids that may be headed for Earth. They have announced a new "Grand Challenge" to find all dangerous space rocks and figure out how to stop them. But not all asteroids are killers, so how do you identify the ones that are? And if you determine that one of them is a menace to life on our planet, what do you DO about it?
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Asteroid 2013 LR6 will pass within 70,000 miles of Earth tonight, making its closest approach over Tasmania at 9:42 Pacific Time. The asteroid is 30 feet in diameter and NASA says it has no chance of striking our planet. What is a matter for concern, though, is that it was just discovered two days ago, on June 6. The discovery was made by NASA’s Catalina Sky Survey. The fact that it is not going to strike Earth is a matter largely of chance, and its discovery such a short time ago is an indication of how urgently NASA needs funding for a much more extensive near earth asteroid identification program.
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A direct hit from an ejection of charged particles from the sun could be among the most serious of natural disasters, NASA head Charles Bolden warned Tuesday. Bolden spoke before scientists and industry members at the Space Weather Enterprise Forum, which was held at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Auditorium and Science Center in Silver Spring, Md. A few days later, a huge hole opened up in the sun’s corona, raising the possibility that major solar storms could take place in the next few days.
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