This illustration shows a coronal mass ejection (CME) blasting off the Sun’s surface in the direction of Earth. This left portion is composed of a telescope image of the Sun superimposed on a coronagraph (measurement of the Sun's corona), made by the Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) and Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) instruments onboard the ESA/NASA SOHO mission.
Two to four days later, the CME cloud is shown striking and being deflected by the Earth’s magnetosphere. The blue paths emanating from Earth’s poles represent some of our home planet's magnetic field lines. The magnetic cloud of plasma from a CME can extend to 50 million kilometres wide by the time it reaches Earth. These storms, which occur frequently, can disrupt communications and navigational equipment, damage satellites, and even cause blackouts.