Scientists say the sun's volative behavior could cause widespread problems on Earth.

The sun's erratic and sometimes volatile behavior has the potential to cause real problems here on Earth, and protecting our planet will require an international effort - according to scientists who gathered recently for a meeting about the effects of solar activity.

Streams of charged particles that fly off the sun can interfere with electronics on Earth and satellites orbiting our planet. For example, during a particularly intense solar storm in 1989, power to an entire Canadian province was knocked out. Since then, other storms have knocked a handful of satellites out of service.

With Earth becoming more and more dependent on technology, the risk from solar flares is only going up, according to experts.

Risk of Solar Flares

Representatives from more than 25 of the world's most technologically-advanced nations convened last week for the International Living with a Star (ILWS) meeting in Bremen, Germany, to discuss the importance of developing better methods for forecasting space weather.

"The problem is solar storms" figuring out how to predict them and stay safe from their effects," said ILWS chairperson Lika Guhathakurta from NASA's Headquarters in Washington, D.C. "We need to make progress on this before the next solar maximum arrives around 2013."

By then, solar storms will be at their strongest and most frequent in the roughly 11-year cycle of the sun's activity, which is just now emerging from an unusually long period of quiescence.

The sun's constant interaction with Earth makes it imperative for solar physicists to keep track of solar activity.

[ MSNBC ]