The eruption of the sun on Sunday and Monday with an M8.7 class flare, causing the biggest solar radiation storm since 2003, has revived apprehensions of stronger solar flares in the near future.

In 2009, an international panel of experts led by NOAA and sponsored by NASA released a new prediction for the next solar cycle. Solar Cycle 24 will peak, they say, in May 2013 with a below-average number of sunspots.

"If our prediction is correct, Solar Cycle 24 will have a peak sunspot number of 90, the lowest of any cycle since 1928, when Solar Cycle 16 peaked at 78," panel chairman Doug Biesecker of the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center said.

According to Biesecker, even a below-average cycle is capable of producing severe space weather. "The great geomagnetic storm of 1859, for instance, occurred during a solar cycle of about the same size we're predicting for 2013," he said.

This year's solar flare triggered the release of billions of tons of charged particles from the sun's atmosphere, now travelling toward the Earth at speeds of up to 1,400 miles per second, according to Nasa's Goddard Space Weather Centre.

"As the sun increases in activity toward 'solar maximum' (predicted to occur in 2013), we can expect more intense solar storms over the coming months. Magnetic activity is bursting through the solar "surface", producing a rash of sunspots. This in turn has resulted in explosive events -- solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) -- boosting the intensity of radiation environment surrounding our planet," according to writer Ian O'Neill.

Astronomer David Whitehouse said the solar storm may affect satellites; it will cause some satellite computers to reboot, it will cause some communications difficulties in northern latitudes, "but it's not big enough to cause problems to sat-nav."

In the 1859 storm, astronomer Richard Carrington witnessed the effects of the solar flare such as electrified transmission cables, fires in telegraph offices, and bright northern lights. According to the National Academy of Sciences, if a similar storm occurred today, it could cause $1 to 2 trillion in damages to infrastructure and will require four to 10 years to recover.

"There is absolutely no reason to believe that we are heading for solar armageddon in 2013, but sooner or later we should expect there to be another Carrington event and that is what these scientists [at NASA] are trying to prevent," said author Dr. Stuart Clark.