When the lights finally came back on, millions of dollars in damage had been attributed to the storm. Magnetic field lines from a CME appear to envelop users of the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment virtual reality tool. The University of Michigan's Stuart Feldman and Aaron Jacobovits developed the visualization application, which allows researchers to fly through the simulation results and find features. 24K size Humanity is maturing into a space-faring race. As we move from exploring space to using it to benefit mankind, the danger of some aspects of space weather has slowly been recognized.
Space weather is a new term in the lexicon of science.
It refers to surges of matter and magnetic energy blown off the sun that periodically sweep across interplanetary space. Twenty years ago the only consequence of space weather was a good aurora. Now we live in the age of the global village, where beepers, cell phones and the Internet keep many of us connected 24 hours a day. It is an age in which satellites are vital tools in communication and commerce, an age when the risk posed by a space storm reaching the outer atmosphere has become all too real. Wherever there is weather, there is also the need for prediction.