Fourth of July celebrations across the United States this weekend could be accompanied by light shows in the night skies, as a string of powerful solar eruptions appear set to strike Earth.
The sun has been especially hyperactive over the past few days — firing off 10 M-class solar flares over 24 hours that have been accompanied by multiple coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which are set to slam into Earth on July 3 and July 5.
CMEs are large, fast-moving clouds of magnetized plasma and solar radiation that occasionally get flung into space with solar flares when kinks in the sun's magnetic field snap. If CMEs smash into Earth, they cause disturbances in Earth's magnetic field, called geomagnetic storms, that can trigger partial radio blackouts and produce vibrant aurora displays farther away from Earth's magnetic poles than usual.
"Machine-Gun Sun! More than 5 storms on their way to Earth and 3 of them offer ...
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