Scientists Warn How Giant Space Hurricanes Could Knock Out Our Satellites

For the first time, new research into solar winds and the 'space hurricanes' they create explains in detail how these bursts push plasma towards Earth – and how we might better protect the satellites and other technology we all rely on for modern living.

We're usually protected from the rays of charged particles pushed out by the Sun, thanks to Earth's magnetosphere or magnetic field boundary, but these shoots of energy can create huge vortices along that edge, pushing plasma into our magnetic shield.

That's thanks to a reaction known as Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability, and it's this reaction and the knock-on effect on the vortices or space hurricanes that the team from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has been investigating.