Steve Johnson reports. 06/27/03.

As far as we're concerned, the sun has always been up there in the sky, heating up our cars and giving us sunburn. Obviously, there's more to the sun than that; a lot more says a scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Indeed there is. Solar flares, or explosions on the surface of the sun, are 20 million degrees hotter than we thought. That's the conclusion of a group of world scientists who've been using a new satellite, called Hessi.

Hessi is a high energy solar spectroscopic imager. Study of solar flares has shown they're hotter than we thought and, knowing that, can help with better predication of flare activity, which is a good thing for all of us.

Satellites, like those that bring you network television, can be damaged by solar flares. Doctor Emslies says, in 1989, solar activity actually wrecked power plants in Canada.

The good news, we're almost at the end of a three year period of increased solar activity.