Our Temperamental Sun

As you may already be aware, the Sun is important.

What you are probably not aware of... is that NASA devotes a lot of time and energy towards monitoring the Sun. 

 A coronal mass ejection (CME) is an eruption of incredibly-hot plasma from the Sun's corona.  CME's are very common, happening about every 5 days. However with the right intensity and direction, they can pose serious risk to the Earth's telecommunication systems -- or even go so far as to disrupt ground based electronic systems:

When an ejection is directed towards Earth, the shockwave of travelling mass disrupts the Earth's magnetosphere -- compressing the shield that protects us from solar and cosmic radiation. This 'compression' exposes Earth-Orbiting satellites, air-planes, and other man-made systems to higher levels of electromagnetic and particle radiation. CME's have even been known to destroy sattelites -- costing hundreds of millions in damages. 

NASA (among other national / international organizations) monitors the Sun for these shockwaves from earth-orbiting installations such as the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO).

Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO): Credit - NASA

By placing Sun-watching satellites into high orbits around the Earth -- we are allowed a 'forecast' of what the Sun plans to throw in our direction. In some cases, satellite operators can even 'power-down' their spacecrafts in advance of the storm -- thereby saving their investments from our temperamental star. 

You can even follow the Sun's forecast yourself : By getting space weather tweets from NOAA