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Space weather can cause both beautiful auroras and infrastructure challenges – 5 essential reads on protecting life and technology

Most days, you can look up and see the Sun shining above. Even if it's hidden behind clouds, you know it's there, lighting up the sky. But while the Sun's light might be relatively constant, its surface is surprisingly active. If you hopped on NASA's Parker Solar Probe for a closeup view of the Sun, you might see spurts of charged gas called solar flares coming off its surface, or dramatic explosions called coronal mass ejections. These events travel outward from the Sun through space, and sometimes they interact with Earth's magnetic field, causing space weather.

This week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is tracking several coronal mass ejections that could lead to a minor geomagnetic storm in Earth's atmosphere. People in Canada and the northern United States may be able to see an aurora the evening of Sept. 9, 2026.

The Conversation U.S. has compiled some articles from our archives on space weather, from the science behind how the phenomenon works to how researchers are working to better understand it – and even predict it.

1. What is space weather?

Solar flares and coronal mass ejections are made up of plasma: electrically charged gas. After they explode off the Sun's surface, they travel through space and may eventually reach Earth. When they run into Earth's atmosphere, they interact with the magnetic field shrouding our planet.

As explained by Yeimy J. Rivera, Rosa Tatiana Niembro Hernández and Samuel Badman – a team of astrophysicists at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory – this collision with the magnetic field causes space weather, or geomagnetic storms, which produce the northern lights: the beautiful streaks of green or purple you may have had the chance to see across the sky last year.

The Sun also produces the solar wind, which is much different from a breeze you might feel on Earth. The solar wind is a stream of charged particles and magnetic field lines ejected from the Sun. Many scientists are interested in how interactions between coronal mass ejections, the solar wind and Earth's magnetic field influence geomagnetic storms.

2. Space weather and technology on Earth

While space weather may look beautiful, it can also be very destructive. These events add more particles into Earth's atmosphere, which can increase drag on satellites and cause them to fall. They also disrupt the radio waves that some satellites use to communicate with Earth.

Several buildings on an icy plain, with green lights in the sky above.

GPS is one type of technology that uses radio waves. Many facets of modern life rely on GPS – not just the map apps on your phone or in your car.

"For many industries – aviation, maritime, robotics, transportation, farming, military and others – GPS positioning errors of a few meters are simply not tenable," wrote Piyush Mehta, an aerospace engineer at West Virginia University.

2025's space weather events disrupted some satellite communications and even triggered overheating alarms for power grids. But history can tell you that some space weather events are far more severe: A strong enough space weather event could do far worse than disrupt satellite communications for a few minutes.

3. Space weather throughout history

Over a century ago, in 1859, a large solar flare outshone the Sun, wrote Dagomar Degroot, an environmental historian at Georgetown University. Telegraph lines – still very new at the time – shorted out, and that night, bright auroras lit up the sky.

Since then, technology has advanced past the telegraph. Beyond satellites, a strong enough solar storm could disrupt cell networks and electrical power grids. These systems underlie communications, transportation, utilities – even the sewer systems.

"For now, one thing is certain: to protect these networks, scientists must monitor the Sun in real time," Degroot wrote. "That way, operators can reduce or reroute the electricity flowing through grids when a coronal mass ejection approaches. A little preparation may prevent a collapse."

4. Studying space weather

Space agencies across the globe have a suite of missions that monitor the Sun and the flares and ejections it produces. In 2025, NASA launched a few more. As Ryan French, a solar physicist at the University of Colorado Boulder, described, together these instruments will monitor space weather from different vantage points, to learn more about how these events are created and how they travel.

In March 2025, NASA launched the Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere, made up of four satellites in Earth's orbit that study how the Sun's outer surface layer creates the solar wind.

Then, in September, NASA launched two more missions: the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, or IMAP, and the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory.

Both IMAP and Carruthers traveled out to the L1 Lagrange point, which is a spot between Earth and the Sun where the two celestial bodies' gravitational pulls balance out. Spacecraft orbiting here get a great view of the Sun, and the gravitational balance means they don't need to constantly use fuel to stay in position.

IMAP will study the solar wind and map how far particles ejected from the Sun reach into space. Carruthers, on the other hand, will turn its sights back on Earth. It will observe what happens to the outer layer of Earth's atmosphere during space weather events.

NASA spacecraft track solar storms, from their eruptions on the Sun until their impact on Earth.

Next year, in 2027, NASA plans to launch another complementary mission called the Sun Coronal Ejection Tracker. This mission will watch how coronal mass ejections change as they are ejected from the Sun.

All these missions will help scientists monitor and respond to space weather events – and the latter goal will only grow more important.

5. Forecasting space weather events

Before the end of the decade, NASA hopes to send humans back to the Moon. And because the Moon doesn't have a magnetic field like Earth, it's especially vulnerable to space weather events, wrote Lulu Zhao, a space scientist at the University of Michigan.

Particles in space, called cosmic radiation, generally aren't good for the human body. Earth's magnetic field deflects most of those particles and keeps life on Earth safe. But if particles from the Sun hit an astronaut on the lunar surface, the astronaut could be at risk for health complications like cancer.

"During a large solar energetic particle event, the radiation dosage an astronaut receives inside a spacesuit could exceed 1,000 times the dosage someone on Earth receives," wrote Zhao. "That would exceed an astronaut's recommended lifetime limit by 10 times."

Zhao and her colleagues are developing a research center that would predict space weather events. Accurate, timely predictions could protect astronauts by giving them the time they'd need to get inside a shelter, as well as protect infrastructure back on Earth.

Space weather research is advancing quickly, with researchers around the globe coming up with designs to help predict these events even further out. The more interconnected the world becomes, the more there will be to protect.

This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation's archives.

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