Solar storms

[NorthernRaider]

The main threat to earth comes from CMEs, Coronal Mass Ejections, huge clouds of electrically charged particles than can and do burst away from the sun when the magnetic energy string gets twisted during a solar flare, the energy in them can be trillions of whatever the is measured in, watts, amps etc, if we are unlucky the CME is pointing at us when it erupts, this sends the cme stream straight at us.

When it arrives the magnetosphere surrounding the earth deflecting the energy towards the poles, if we are unlucky like Canada was in 84 ish the burst follows the pole down and jumps across to energy electricity distribution grids , thus overloading the grid and blacking everything out.