From a celestial perspective, Earth’s position is anything but serene. It is like an exposed rock on a storm-lashed coastline, constantly battered by the elements, primarily, ironically, by what is essential for life on our planet: the Sun. Just as it is the primary driver of Earth’s weather, the Sun immediately powers the weather in the space around it. The term ‘space weather’ refers to the phenomena triggered by solar activity, such as solar wind – the stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun – and its effects in our thermosphere, magnetosphere, and ionosphere – a series of regions within our atmosphere hosting a relatively large number of electrically charged atoms and molecules.
