Today in the media were numerous reports, referring to British newspaper The Sunday Times, that the UK government is planning massive power outage, if will be reports about large solar flares.

We consider it necessary to notice, that the newspaper The Sunday Times was not the first newspaper of Great Britain, who reported similar news. One of the first newspaper, which reported similar intentions of the UK Government over a week ago, was the newspaper The Independent, which reported, that the representatives of Great Britain and the U.S. discussed the possibility of mass and the controlled power outages in their own countries, if will be reports about large solar flares.

Recall, that in an interview with The Independent, Thomas Bogdan, who is director of the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center, said that the massive and controlled by the authorities a power outage to protect the national electrical network from harm, which can cause powerful flash in the sun.

Such concerns caused not only by theoretical calculations - during major geomagnetic storms occurred cases of mass disconnection of power supply of entire regions. Recall the case in March 1989, in Quebec, Canada when a powerful magnetic storm caused major power outages and millions of people in Quebec were without electricity.

There is also information, that the U.S. President and British Prime Minister discussed about mass power outages in their countries. The fact, that governments are concerned about possible riots, that can arise in the case of massive power outages. One example -is the case of a power outage in New York from 13 to 14 July 1977, when most of New York City plunged into darkness and began rioting. Robbers had looted more than a thousand stores. Total loot in this July night involved more than 100 thousand people. Therefore, governments are seeking to advance to reduce the possible negative effects from the effects of magnetic storms on power grids (for details see our article published on our website a week ago.)

Recall, that solar flares - these are processes of energy generation in light, heat and kinetic form in the solar atmosphere. Solar flares cover all layers of the solar atmosphere: the photosphere, chromosphere and solar corona. Duration flares are usually no more than several minutes, but the amount of energy that accompanies the solar flare reaches of billion megatons of TNT.

The energy of a solar flare is released as radiation in different bands and as streams of charged particles (protons and electrons). Power from solar flares is determined by the magnitude of these outbreaks produced by X-rays. The most powerful solar flares are the flashes of class X. Next come the flashes of class M is the flash output power is 10 times smaller than that of flares of class X, class C to include the flash capacity is 10 times smaller than that of flares of class M. The latter, the power of radiation, solar flares are class B- are the weakest solar flares.

Although some media announced, that the next few days will be the geomagnetic storm, which will be most powerful in 150 years, but the NASA does not think so, because today on June 21, 2011 at 4:12 UT on the Sun, was an outbreak of a very middle-class C, which will not cause a powerful geomagnetic storm on Earth in the coming days.