6 Jun 2012 21:33

Social unrest in Russia "heated up" by Sun - scientist

MOSCOW. June 6 (Interfax) - The social unrest in Russia might have been caused, among other things, by increased solar activity, says Georgy Golitsyn, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

"This (social unrest) is facilitated by a large number of various factors, which may include solar activity," Golitsyn told Interfax-AVN at the Institute of Space Research on Tuesday.

Earlier, scientists already forecast the likely impact of solar activity on social sentiments. In 2008, Yury Zaitsev, an academic advisor at the Russian Academy of Engineering Sciences, told Interfax-AVN that another cycle of solar activity, which will peak in 2011-2012, will be marked by increased radiation emissions and social unrest.

"Scientists are expecting new signs of renewed solar activity to emerge and have been trying to forecast what the new 24th cycle will be like. That it promises to prove quite difficult for our planet is also evidenced by the fact that the initial period of its 'Solar minimum' was marked by a series of strong flares," Zaitsev said four years ago.

Solar activity will peak in late 2011 - early 2012, when the biggest solar radiation emission and coronal mass ejection will occur. "Overall, the new cycle of solar activity is expected to be 30-50% more powerful than the previous one, which was already marked by a number of super-powerful cataclysms," the scientist said at the time.

The incredibly powerful flares, which have been observed in recent years, various signs of the abnormal rise in solar activity, and the insufficient understanding of the nature of the processes occurring on the Sun, require particular attention to their likely effects on the planet, the scientist said.

Thus, solar activity could lead to social upheavals such as wars and revolutions, spiritual, scientific and technological breakthroughs, Zaitsev said. "The correlation between solar activity and all kinds of processes on the Earth, including social ones, has been detected long ago. However, its mechanism still remains unclear. Its understanding is becoming a major challenge for modern-day science," he said.