Surprising power of solar storms

During solar storms the Earth’s atmosphere receives huge amounts of energy from the charged particles and ultraviolet radiation hitting it. A big solar storm can dump as much energy in the atmosphere as could power the whole of New York City for 2 years! Some of this energy we see as the aurora, but the atmosphere also heats up, and 95% of this energy is radiated back into space by carbon dioxide and nitric oxide.

There really is so much more power up there than meets the eye as the aurora!

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