Big solar storm heading toward Earth

By Amanda Barnett and Anika Myers Palm, CNN September 12, 2014
 
(CNN) -- This is not your usual weather forecast. Big storms are brewing. Your umbrella won't help, but you might want to keep a flashlight handy.
These storms are coming from the sun. It's raining down a huge amount of radiation. We're safe, but it could affect power grids, radios and satellites.
Experts say the combined energy from two recent solar events will arrive at Earth on Saturday, prompting the Space Weather Prediction Center to issue a strong geomagnetic storm watch.
Wait. What kind of watch? Basically, the sun is a giant ball of gas: 92.1% hydrogen and 7.8% helium. Every now and then, it spits out a giant burst of radiation called a coronal mass ejection.
 
These ejections are sometimes associated with solar flares, the most explosive events in the solar system. The sun has released two ejections in the past two days, and both are linked to solar flares. NASA says the second flare is an X1.6 class, putting it in the most intense category.
 
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