Can the Sun be dangerous? Sometimes, yes. Watch what happens when Earth is in a powerful Solar storm.
Every few years, the Sun blasts out a huge bubble of hot gas into space, called a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME).
Video Credit: NASA‘s SVS, SWRC, CCMC, SWMF; T. Bridgman et al.
Most of these miss Earth, but every century or so, one hits directly with the right timing and magnetic connection. When that happens, Earth lights up with intense auroras, and its magnetic shield gets squashed, causing electrical surges. These surges can damage satellites and even shut down power grids for months.
A famous example is the Carrington Event of 1859, when telegraph wires sparked due to overload. More recently, in 2012, a massive CME just missed Earth. The video shows what could have happened if it had struck—our magnetic shield would have been pushed so far back that it would be inside the orbit of communication satellites.
source APOD
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