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The outer atmosphere of the Sun, the corona, is familiar to many people who have watched total eclipses of the sun. But extending billions of miles further out into space is the solar wind. Like invisible roadways spanning the solar system, the magnetic field from the Sun spirals out from the solar surface. Matter ejected from the Sun flows radially outwards from the solar surface. From the time a solar storm is seen on the Sun, it can take 2-3 days for the gas to travel to the orbit of the Earth, and if the Earth happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, it will be hit by a million-mile wall of high temperature plasma and magnetic fields. |
