I just read this one from yahoo news. About solar storms, this idea never came up into my mind and now I've realized how scary it was. According to the news our sun now has dozens of sunspots. It has 17 and one is about the size of the earth. After years of quiet, the sun is coming alive with solar storms in a big way. The outer solar atmosphere, the corona, is structured by strong magnetic fields, which when closed can cause the atmosphere to suddenly and violently release bubbles or tongues of gas and magnetic fields called coronal mass ejections which streak out through the interplanetary medium, impacting any planets or spacecraft in its path. So, it might be possible that out planet will be hit by one of these.... Scarry