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Thursday, January 17, 2019 - 12:20
in Astronomy & Space
It’s difficult to comprehend the size and sheer power of our Sun, a churning ball of hot gas 4.6 billion years old and 1.3 million times larger than Earth, which emits solar wind — the constant stream of electrons, protons and atomic particles — and routinely lashes out with Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), outbursts of colossal clouds of solar plasma flung into space. The most extreme events, arrivals of fast CMEs or high-speed solar-wind streams, disturb our protective magnetic shield, creating geomagnetic storms at Earth.