Geomagnetic

CMEs can spark powerful geomagnetic storms if they slam into Earth’s magnetic field.

If solar storms and strandings were indeed connected, the scientists thought they might detect patterns in Earth’s geomagnetic activity in the time surrounding a stranding event.

As recently as 2003, a big geomagnetic storm during that period we call the Halloween Storms produced a blackout in Malmo, Sweden, and damaged transformers in the Eskom network in South Africa.

One of the earliest (and biggest) space weather events on record occurred in September 1859, when a massive solar eruption crashed into the Earth's magnetosphere, triggering a geomagnetic storm that lasted for days.