Hi Erica,

In fact solar storms can travel way beyond any planet in our solar system. A large coronal mass ejection that left the Sun in March 2012 was observed by the Voyager spacecraft 13 months later when it was about 12 billion miles away from the Sun (about 4 times farther than Pluto).

-Christina

Hi Erica,

The Voyager I observations of solar storms near the heliopause (the edge of the region of space affected by the Sun) were made by a plasma wave instrument built by some of my co-workers at the University of Iowa. Even though the Voyager I spacecraft was launched more than 30 years ago, the University of Iowa plasma wave instrument is still going strong and returning interesting data about the heliosphere (the very large region of space affected by the Sun and the solar wind). Scientists have found evidence that Voyager recently left the heliosphere and entered interstellar space. You can read more about the University of Iowa instrument on Voyager here:

http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/voyager/

Kris