The websites defines space weather as “conditions in space that change from time to time.” This weather is not the same as the weather we define for the planet Earth (which is determined by temperature, air pressure, the speed and direction of the wind, etc) but they share some certain characteristics. The space weather circumstances can easily be modified by a number of factors, such as the changes in the sun’s radiations, the changes in the speed and pressure of the solar wind (a flow of charged particles), and the shift in the strengths and directions of the magnetic fields.
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Space weather can have immediate effects on Earth’s weather. It can enter the planet’s magnetic field and the atmosphere. The earth is surrounded by the magnetic field which swirls around it all the time in complicated patterns. The effects of the space weather storms on earth depend on what the sun storms are like and how they flow.
Changes in the sun - and consequently in the space wether - can affect many aspects of our everyday lives on the planet Earth. The Sun helps the plants grow and if there is any changes in its radiations, it can affect the earth’s climate and therefore threaten the lives of the living beings. Satellites can be damaged or destroyed by the space wether storms and thus the cell-phone communications can be disrupted. If the storms are large enough, they have the ability to cause a power black-out in a large area of the world.
There is a good side to the effects of space weather on earth too. The beautiful northern and southern lights (which are also called aurora) are created when the radiations of a storm enter the earth’s atmosphere.
References
Russell, R. (2007, February 7). What is Space Weather? Retrieved December 28, 2014, from http://www.windows2universe.org/space_weather/sw_intro/what_is_sw.html
Space Weather Lenticular. (n.d.). Retrieved December 28, 2014 from http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/spaceweather/lenticular/
About space weather. (n.d.). Retrieved December 28, 2014, from http://swe.ssa.esa.int/web/guest/what-is-space-weather
