Hi Nathan,

A solar storm can affect ALL the planets in our solar system...all the way out to Pluto and Neptune!

We know this because the two Voyager spacecraft are now out way beyond Pluto and Neptune...and they have instruments that can measure the effects of solar storms. The radio receivers on the Voyager spacecraft may have even picked up an echo from a solar storm hitting the big jump in density beyond 150 AU (150 times the distance from the Sun to Earth) where the solar wind meets the interstellar medium.

Paulett

Nathan,

Solar storms get expelled from the solar surface at huge speeds and travel very large distances! They can travel past the solar system and can cause auroral activity on other planets besides Earth. Once a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) is ejected from the Sun, depending on how fast its initial speed is, it will eventually slow down and become entrenched in the solar wind. The solar wind is a constant stream of material that reaches to the edge of the heliospere (a region beyond Pluto that is the outer edge of where the Sun's magnetic field extends), so its effect on the planets becomes enhanced when a CME is traveling within it.

Holly

Hi Nathan!

Below are also some images of the solar related activity on other planets. The first one is Saturn's aurora captured by Cassini. The second one, also taken by Cassini, shows a circular current that flows around Jupiter. This current is usually called 'ring current' and it intensifies when eruptions from the Sun interact with the magnetosphere of the planet.