Science / Medicine : Solar Key to Magnetic Storms Seen

Scientists said last week they had identified the type of outbursts on the sun that trigger large magnetic storms on Earth and they proposed a way to provide reliable early warning of such storms. Large storms in Earth’s magnetic field can make compass needles point inaccurately, interrupt the operation of communication satellites and disrupt electrical power systems.

“We have shown that nearly all major geomagnetic storms observed near the peak of the solar activity cycle are associated with fast-moving coronal mass ejections,” said astrophysicist Jack Gosling of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Coronal mass ejections are gigantic blobs of gas driven into space when a magnetic field rises off the sun and swells into space like an inflating balloon.