People talking about power failures from solar storms always point back to March 13, 1989, 31 years ago. They have the potential to affect power grids, and have been known to black out entire cities, even entire regions. They can disrupt telecommunications and navigation systems. If Earth happens to be in the path of a CME, the charged particles can slam into our atmosphere, disrupt satellites in orbit and even cause them to fail, and bathe high-flying airplanes with radiation. The most powerful solar storms send coronal mass ejections (CMEs), containing charged particles, into space. The storm on the sun causes a type of storm on the Earth, known as a geomagnetic storm. When a coronal mass ejection, or CME, strikes EarthвЂ™s atmosphere, it causes a temporary disturbance of the EarthвЂ™s magnetic field.

On the other hand вЂ¦ solar storms can be dangerous to our technologies. | A solar flare as observed by NASAвЂ™s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) on January 23, 2012. EarthвЂ™s atmosphere and magnetosphere protect our human bodies from the effects of solar flares. Still, solar storms вЂ“ and their effects вЂ“ are no problem for us on EarthвЂ™s surface. They would be dangerous to unshielded astronauts, say, astronauts traveling to the moon. What is the danger of a solar storm in space? Very high-energy particles, such as those carried by CMEs, can cause radiation poisoning to humans and other mammals. If thatвЂ™s so, then all life on Earth evolved under their influence. Remember, thereвЂ™s every reason to believe that storms on the sun have been happening for billions of years, since the sun and Earth came to be. These storms are awesome to contemplate, but they cannot harm our human bodies as long as we remain on the surface of Earth, where weвЂ™re protected by EarthвЂ™s blanket of atmosphere. Solar storms arenвЂ™t dangerous to humans on EarthвЂ™s surface. This solar material streams out through space, and sometimes strikes Earth. Occasional, powerful coronal mass ejections, or CMEs вЂ“ giant bubbles of gas and magnetic fields from the sun, containing up to a billion tons of charged particles that can travel up to several million miles per hour вЂ“ are released into the interplanetary medium. Space observatories will detect short-lived but brilliant and powerful solar flares вЂ“ intense bursts of radiation and our solar systemвЂ™s largest explosive events вЂ“ lasting minutes to hours on the sunвЂ™s surface. In an active part of the sunвЂ™s 11-year cycle of activity, those using telescopes equipped with special solar filters to peer at the sun вЂ“ or photograph it вЂ“ can see dark sunspots dotting the sunвЂ™s surface. | An illustration of EarthвЂ™s magnetic field shielding our planet from solar particles.

Chunkks of sun corona storm