You see that picture of the sun on the right? Mesmerizing right? It may be pretty but don't get to carried away the sun can be pretty dangerous when it wants too that's why scientists keep an extra on our sun. They keep tract of "Space weather". Space weather is a branch of space physics
and astronomy
concerned with the time varying conditions within the Solar System, including the solar wind
, and especially the space surrounding the Earth, including conditions whit the earths atmosphere.
My project this quarter is over solar flares. What are they you say. Solar flares are
brief eruptions on the suns surface associated with sun spots and contain high energy radiation. Solar flares can cause electromagnetic disturbances on the earth. They are powerful enough to cause loss of electrical power over a large region and damage our satellites and power grids that could be devastating for our society as we are becoming more and more dependent on technology. Whit our naked eye we can see solar flares by watching auroras. Auroras mostly occur closer to the North and South poles. As solar wind strikes the earths magnetic fields some particles move towards the poles and cause the amazing light show.
Since the beginning of human existence we have been fascinated whit our sky's. Early astronomers even before galios time civilizations have looked up at our stars and imagined whats out there. In the middle and late 20th century humans started what was the start of space travel and a start of a new age where instead of imagining we could actually visit space. It was called the space race. During the cold war the Soviet Union and the United States started to "race' or in other words compete to prove who was the better country by being the first to go into space first. The space race pushed us beyond our boundaries. From Sputnik to to Apollo 11 with Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin being the first man to set foot on the moon and beyond. 
Many countries around the world came together and created the International Space Station which is a habitable satellite orbiting earth. Scientist,
astronomers, physicists and more use it and other telescopes specially designed
and do experiments and gather research on the universe. And now we have set our site on mars. A private transport services company has started a program called SpaceX that will begin sending humans and supply's to mars in hopes that one day we will be able to colonize the planet. We have come a long way as a human race and as we continue to make new discoveries and reaching outside the box we will reach a new understanding of how the universe works and how it came to be. Its all a posses of continually learning in order to solve the mysteries our universe holds. 
