(NEXSTAR) – Coronal mass ejections — or explosive accelerations of plasma and magnetic material from the Sun — can be strong enough to disturb the Earth’s magnetosphere, producing geomagnetic storms powerful enough to cause both the northern lights and widespread telecommunications disruptions.

Could a CME actually wipe out life on Earth, though?

No, it can't, according to experts. But a strong storm could still have devastating consequences.

Coronal mass ejections, or CMEs for short, are observed around once per week during a solar minimum (the sun’s less-active phase) and up to several times per day during a solar maximum. But rarely does a CME event affect the day-to-day operations of Earth’s inhabitants. It’s also “not considered possible” that a CME would destroy life on our planet, a space weather forecaster told Nexstar.

“Earth is very well protected by our atmosphere and our protective magnetic barrier,” Shawn Dahl, a forecaster with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), said.

That doesn’t mean CMEs can’t be disruptive........

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