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A storm on the sun can reach Earth and knock out power grids and satellites when it arrives.

Astronomy Facts, sourced to NASA.

What it means

The sun throws off bursts of charged particles, and when one strikes Earth's magnetic field it induces currents in long conductors on the ground. A storm in 1989 collapsed the power grid across Quebec in under two minutes. A far larger event in 1859 set telegraph offices on fire and made auroras visible near the tropics, and something on that scale today would be considerably more expensive.

The claim comes from NASA, and the page it comes from was read on 2026-08-27 to confirm it still says this.

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