We are familiar with the daily weather forecasts on Earth, but rarely do we hear predictions for the Sun’s weather on the nightly news. Yet, without the energy from the Sun there would be no weather on our planet. Giant magnetic storms fling out arches of gas and plasma that are larger than the Earth and contain far more energy than all the atomic bombs on our planet, threatening astronauts and satellites and lighting up the night sky. In the attached essay (PDF format) I explain the causes of the Sun’s weather phenomena and explore the impact that they have on the Earth.
The Impact of Solar Weather (pdf, 418KB)