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The sun’s strong blasts that have erupted since Sunday have made themselves felt here on Earth. Our star has released three large blobs of plasma and magnetic field, which resemble big chunks of twisted rope, known as coronal mass ejections. The sun spits these CMEs out at more than 1 million miles per hour, and they commonly follow solar flares—eruptions of radiation from the sun.
Yesterday, scientists observed the strongest solar flare so far this year, which was near the top of the scale at an X5.1 rating.
So far, as of the time of this writing, two of the three recent CMEs made their way to Earth over the night of Nov. 11 and painted stunning auroras as south as Florida and Mexico amid a severe geomagnetic storm. Now, the third and most intense CME is forecast to arrive here sometime today and usher in a severe storm again—perhaps even a category higher than yesterday’s.
All of this recent hubbub has emerged from an active sunspot called AR4274 that’s currently facing Earth. Once these bursts of energy reach Earth, they can interfere with critical communications systems. Yesterday, this unruly space weather sparked radio blackouts throughout Europe and Africa. That’s because solar energy smacks into our planet’s magnetosphere and sends radiation particles down its magnetic field lines. These particles hit atoms in Earth’s upper atmosphere, sparking geomagnetic storms that bring beautiful auroras but also mess with GPS signals, satellite electronics, radio communications, and our electrical power grids.
You may have noticed plenty of solar action over the past few years. That’s because we’re in a particularly active phase of the current solar cycle. Every 11 years or so, the sun’s magnetic poles flip at the height of the sun’s activity—when our star’s magnetic fields tend to be the most chaotic. This can produce more CMEs that may impact us here on Earth. The current solar cycle’s peak might have passed last year—or we’re currently in the thick of it, astronomers say.
Read more: “The Sneaky Force Behind Our Sun’s Violent Outbursts”
CMEs aren’t limited to our sun, however. For the first time, scientists recently detected solid evidence of a coronal mass ejection from another star: Astronomers noticed a brief but intense radio signal from a red dwarf star located some 40 light-years from Earth. This star is quite different from our sun—it’s much colder and smaller, and has a magnetic field 300 times stronger. The CME seemed to be whizzing through space at nearly 1,500 miles per second, far quicker than most CMEs observed spewing out of our life-giving star.
Scientists think stormy space weather could be even more intense around other small stars like this red dwarf, putting our recent solar interruptions into perspective. 
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Lead image: Space Weather Prediction Center / NOAA
