CHARLOTTE, North Carolina - August 3, 2011 - Storms are brewing about 93 million miles away, and if one of them reaches Earth, it could knock out communications, scramble GPS, and leave thousands without power for weeks or even months.
The tempest is what's known as a solar storm, a flurry of charged particles that erupts from the sun. Under the right conditions, solar storms can create extra electrical currents in Earth's magnetosphere - the region around the planet controlled by our magnetic field.











