Question

When the sun impacts weather, an interaction with the __________ takes place.

Answer 1

Our star—the Sun—is a bubbling, boiling ball of fire. See Picture 1 to the right. It constantly belches out great clouds of hot gas. This gas is all charged up with electricity, too. This stuff travels at astounding speeds, some of it right toward Earth! This means that Earth’s weather happens inside the Sun’s weather!

Thank goodness Earth’s magnetic field (see Picture 2) and atmosphere protect us from most of this blast. Otherwise, the Sun’s weather would be OUR weather. Yikes!

However, we are still affected by the Sun’s atmosphere and its violent activities. We call this part of our weather “space weather,” because it comes to us through space from the Sun.