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Watch for the Northern Lights During This Week's Solar Storm

March 8, 2012 at 9:53 AM | by | Comments (0)

When traveling, there's all kinds of weather phenomenon to worry about: lightning, high wind, thunderheads and turbulence, tornadoes (ah hem St. Louis Airport), but today the focus is on a solar storm.

A solar storm is a blast of energy released from the sun, which reaches us here on Earth a few days after it's brightened up the sun's atmosphere. A barrage of X-rays and UV radiation hits our atmosphere, disrupting everything from GPS navigation and communication to power grids and plane routes. You won't be able to see the storm—it's an electromagnetic thing—and it won't crash any planes (don't worry), but it will be super interesting for science geeks around the world.

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