BOULDER, COLORADO -- The sun never sets for the Space Environment Center.

Thats good news when your "Sol" duty is around-the-clock eyeing of Earths nearest star and monitoring how that giant ball of stellar fireworks affects the space neighborhood and our own little turf of terra firma.

The Space Environment Center (SEC), part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is tucked away within mountain foothills of nearby Boulder.

The center is replete with observation domes, antenna gear and satellite dishes always ready to provide real-time sun watching as well as forecasts of solar and geophysical events.

So strong and wicked are the suns energetic antics that satellite operations, telecommunications services and electrical power grids can be disrupted.

During a recent visit by SPACE.com, his storm warnings are up. His phones are ringing. Data floods in from sun-scanning spacecraft. Satellite owners want more information. Newspapers are calling.

Nothing like in-your-face commotion along with a solar storm streaming in from 93 million miles (149.7 million kilometers) away.

"The solar wind jumped from 1 million-miles per hour (1.6 million kilometers per hour) to almost twice that in about a minutes time," Kunches said.

The jump came because the sun had cranked out a coronal mass ejection, a flareup that belched a cloud of electrically charged particles towards Earths magnetic field.

Several satellites were affected and these same powerful particles are likely, in later hours, to kick off a natural light show on Earth of auroral displays -- typically known as the northern lights -- that could be visible even at middle latitudes.

"Try and imagine," Kunches said. "The Earths got this dinky little magnetic field around it. It isnt terribly strong. All of a sudden, this big parcel of solar wind comes in and Blam! Its so strong that for a few minutes it actually pushes down the nose of the Earths magnetic field inside the orbit of geosynchronous spacecraft (22,300 miles, or 35,885 kilometers up).

"Yes, I know it causes problems," he said, "and Im sorry it does. But its great to see such energy content, so beyond us in terms of the scale size. Days like this, you feel like youve been run over by a truck."

The SEC makes use of a variety of spacecraft: NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) and the NASA/European Space Agency Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), as well as various NOAA satellites.

Working at SEC, said Kunches, 51, is like being a musician in Carnegie Hall.

This solar flare was observed by the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer spacecraft at 03:30 GMT on 12 April 2000. The image was taken shortly after the flare started. It shows the primary flare site just right from the center. Very fast beams of energetic particles traveled along the field lines toward the left, which upon impact on the lower, cooler atmosphere light up along a curved track. TRACE is a mission of the Stanford-Lockheed Institute for Space Research and part of the NASA Small Explorer program.

This image shows the same solar flare and curved track, taken at 03:31:51 GMT. Where the track is white, the image brightened; where it is dark, it became dimmer. It shows that the flare site is connected to a dome of field lines, ending along the ridge on the left.

"We get so much data in real-time and have a first look at it in a lot of ways. We sort of meld it together to try and figure out whats going on," he said.

You might think watching the sun would be as exciting as watching paint dry.

But Kunches has a long-term relationship with our parent star, dating back to 1973 with solar observations taken by U.S. astronauts aboard Skylab.

He admits that telling people about his job catches most of them off guard.

"Were at this 24 hours a day," he said. "My wife was asked once by a neighbor wondering what kind of job I had when I left for work late one night. She said, Oh, he goes and watches the sun. People dont understand that the sun does vary in its behavior over days and over years."

Sun-watching is working its way into mainstream, everyday life.

"Not because the sun is doing anything different than it ever did but because were doing things as a society now, more than ever, that can be impacted by solar activity," Kunches said.

The sun goes through cycles of high and low activity that repeat about every 11 years.

This image of coronal loops over the eastern limb of the Sun was taken in the TRACE 171-A pass band, on November 6, 1999, at 02:30 GMT.

The last solar maximum peaked in 1989, so this year is thought to be a peak season for the suns fury. In a matter of minutes, a large solar flare can release a million times more energy than the largest earthquake.

Kunches proudly points out that hes seen three solar cycles and a few full ones.

But so far, the solar maximum this year has been sort of a no-show.

"This cycle has been a funny one. All early indications were that it would be at least on par with the one that reached its peak in 1989. That one had some tremendous episodes of really big activity," Kunches said.

An anticipated increase in sunspots, which are linked to more solar activity, has not happened.

"For whatever reason, were just not seeing the big activity. It doesnt surprise me. When we try to squeeze a little more out of whatever information is there, we get fooled. Its what happens when you really dont understand the science as well as you would like. There are many things unsolved...which is one of the fun parts of the job," he said.

On the other hand, perhaps Earth is just in the wrong spot compared to those 1989 events.

"Who's to say if the sun is letting us down or happenstance has meant were standing in the wrong place and not bearing the suns brunt? After all, the sun doesnt give a hoot where we are," he said.

It isnt easy living with a star. Trying to provide accurate and reliable alerts and warnings about the suns doing and its outbreaks of geomagnetic storms and radiation showers is a tough assignment.

The task has become more critical as spacewalking crews piece together the International Space Station.

Between 1999 and 2004, astronaut construction of the huge facility coincides with periods of high solar radiation event activity.

A better prediction about the sun's inner and outer workings is the Holy Grail for any solar researcher.

Kunches is no different. Augmented satellite coverage of the sun, improved computers and software models along with the flow of data via the internet all make for higher confidence in space weather forecasting.

Yet the interplay between solar ejections and the interplanetary medium, solar winds, magnetic, as well as electric fields equal a shoving match of sizeable and, assuredly, chaotic proportions.

"I think you chip away at it," Kunches said. Newly proposed armadas of solar sentinels, positioned to collectively scan the entire solar sphere, could provide a few days additional warning about prospective events.

Also likely to receive more attention in the next 10 to 20 years, is helioseismology -- an ability to watch the "heartbeat" of the sun, perhaps even to foretell clusters of large sunspots days before they rotate into visible view from Earth.

"Our sun is a variable star. Theres no two ways about it. So just the appreciation of that fact might make us better off in the long run," Kunches said.

Understanding of how the sun interacts with Earth to influence our planets fragile climate is critical to our well-being, he said.

"There are just so many open and intriguing questions," he said. "It sort of bothers me. When I am gone from this job, Im just not going to know how a lot of this stuff turns out. So thats going to be a problem. Theres a lot to do. But that is what makes it so attractive in the first place."

The Earth-sky connection at Boulder is ideal for Kunches, who has two daughters and two sons with his wife Linda, whom he calls "the best teacher Ive ever known." Rounding out the family are a dog, a cat and two fish.

In his free time, Kunches enjoys skiing, golfing, playing softball.

"I like to be outside...in the sun," he said.