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Regardless of what the weather outside is like where you're watching, we are all being hit by a solar storm.
不管你看到的外面的天气如何，我们都在遭受太阳风暴的袭击。
A coronal mass ejection from a filament lifted off the sun on March 3rd, according to the U.S. government.
据美国政府称，3月3日，从暗条变成的日冕物质抛射飞出了太阳。
And the effects of this were predicted to hit the Earth on Wednesday and Thursday.
并预计其影响将在周三和周四袭击地球。
So what does that mean? Hopefully not much.
这意味着什么呢? 希望影响不大。
Even though solar storms can cause problems on Earth by disrupting GPS, satellites and the power grid, the one hitting now is relatively minor.
尽管太阳风暴会扰乱全球定位系统、卫星和电网，从而给地球带来问题，但目前的太阳风暴影响相对较小。
It's classified as a G1 on a scale from G1 to G5 with the "G" standing for geomagnetic and the one being the weakest classification on the NOAA Geomagnetic Storm Scale.
太阳风暴的等级为G1 到 G5，此次太阳风暴等级为G1，其中“G”代表地磁，1代表NOAA地磁风暴等级中最弱的分类。
So why and how are scientists keeping up with these events?
那么，科学家们为什么以及如何跟踪这些事件呢?
Solar storms have been known to cause all kinds of trouble disrupting flights and power grids sounds, kind of scary.
众所周知，太阳风暴会带来各种各样的麻烦，扰乱航班和电网，听起来有点可怕。
So how worried should we actually be?
那么，我们到底应该有多担心呢?
The weather on the sun is a little different than the weather here on earth.
太阳上的天气和地球上的天气有点不同。
It consists of solar wind, solar flares and coronal mass ejections, which are these giant bubbles of plasma and magnetic fields from the sun that send high-speed particles into space.
太阳上的天气由太阳风，太阳耀斑和日冕物质抛射组成，这些都是来自太阳的巨大等离子体气泡和磁场，它们将高速粒子送入太空。
These storms can last a few minutes or several hours.
这些风暴可能持续几分钟或几小时。
And even though they're happening over 90 million miles away, they're so powerful that their effects can linger in our magnetosphere and atmosphere for days or weeks.
即使它们发生在9000万英里之外，它们的威力如此之大，可以在我们的磁层和大气中持续几天或几周。
If directed at earth, these flares and CMEs create geomagnetic storms that then dazzle us with spectacular auroras.
如果这些耀斑和日冕物质抛射射向地球，就会产生地磁风暴，随后就会出现令人眼花缭乱的壮观极光。
But that's the fun part.
但这是有趣的部分。
Beyond a light show, these solar storms can harm most modern-day technology, like satellites communication systems, power grids and airplanes.
除了极光秀，这些太阳风暴可能会损害大多数现代科技，比如卫星通信系统、电网和飞机。
They can make airplanes disappear from radar detection and cause major blackouts.
它们可以使飞机从雷达探测中消失，并导致大规模停电。
In 1989, a solar storm caused a blackout in Canada that left 6 million without power for 12 hours.
1989年，一场太阳风暴导致加拿大停电，600万人断电12小时。
While our technology is at the mercy of these solar storms, our bodies are not.
虽然我们的科技受制于这些太阳风暴，但我们的身体不会。
That's because the Earth's atmosphere shields us from harmful radiation.
这是因为地球的大气层保护我们免受有害的辐射。
But astronauts who are traveling through space won't be as lucky.
但在太空中旅行的宇航员就没这么幸运了。
Shielding astronauts from the space weather is something NASA is working on right now to make sure our astronauts are safe and shielded on future deep space missions.
保护宇航员免受太空天气的影响是NASA现在正在做的事情，以确保我们的宇航员在未来的深空任务中是安全的和有防护的。
But back here on Earth, there's a facility in Boulder, Colorado, that monitors the sun's forecast.
不过在地球上，科罗拉多州博尔德市有一个监测太阳预报的设施。
It's called the Space Weather Prediction Center.
该设施被称为空间天气预报中心。
So by getting ahead of the space weather, we can better protect our technology.
因此，通过预先了解太空天气，我们可以更好地保护我们的技术。
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