From sparking powerful solar storms to causing forest fires, know the dangers of solar winds

tech.hindustantimes.com:

Solar winds have been part of the reason behind the recent series of solar storms that have struck the Earth in the last couple of weeks. They either sparked solar storm incidents or amplified an active storm. But often, we tend to overlook its potential to cause damage when compared to solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CME). However, as per NASA officials and research papers, these stellar winds are capable of not only sparking solar storms but also triggering forest fires, and damaging spacecraft, potentially putting the lives of astronauts in danger.

Solar winds are not winds since space is entirely vacuum and air does not exist there. These ‘winds' are powerful waves of plasma that are created in the corona of the Sun. They contain both solar particles as well as strong magnetic fields, according to NASA. Due to the extremely fast rotation speed of the Sun, the plasma winds up near the polar region, from where it escapes along the outwardly projecting magnetic field lines of the Sun and surrounds it in a sheath-like structure.

According to a study published on PubMed, some particular forest fires could be associated with solar winds striking the planet. The study analyzed forest fires in Europe, particularly in Spain and Portugal in 2005, and found that “in every concrete situation, an emission of strong electromagnetic and thermal corpuscular energy from highly energetic regions that were in geo-effective position had preceded the fires”.

While the research did maintain its inability to prove with certainty that solar winds were responsible for the forest fires, it mentioned, “There is a strong causality relationship between solar activity and the ignition of these forest fires taking place in South-western