The sun is constantly belching globs of its inner self out into space, but every eleven years or so, changes to the sun's magnetic field bring on an increase in sunspots, solar flares, and events called coronal mass ejections. The result is a barrage of charged particles hurtling toward Earth.

One solar flare, to choose a single example of this so-called space weather, can release as much energy as one million hundred-megaton nuclear explosions, in just moments.

The peak in the solar cycle is called a solar maximum or solar max.