MOSCOW — It has long been established that magnetic storms not only affect the performance of equipment, upset radio communications, blackout radars, and disrupt radio navigation systems but also endanger living organisms. They change the blood flow, especially in capillaries, affect blood pressure, and boost adrenalin.

The young and fit couldn’t care less, but those who are older, may develop problems. They have to consider the state of magnetosphere in their daily plans. Before, people were glued to weather forecasts. Now they are obsessed with the geomagnetic situation.

But what is a magnetic storm?

Shortly after the launch of the first satellites, mankind discovered the solar wind – a continuous flow of hot plasma from the solar corona. At a distance of 10-12 Earth’s radii in the direction of the Sun, where the energy of the solar wind equals that of the Earth’s magnetic field, solar wind particles change their direction, and flow around the Earth, forming a comet-like plasma vacuum — the magnetosphere. The size of its sophisticated but fairly stable structure depends on solar wind pressure, and hence, on solar activity.

The tail of the magnetosphere, which stretches for hundreds of thousands of kilometers in the direction opposite to the Sun, accumulates […]