U.S. researchers have uncovered new insights into the physics of space weather, which could help scientists predict volatile “solar wind” and provide forecasts, allowing humankind to better deal with them.

Research that will be presented before an upcoming annual meeting of the American Physical Society’s Division of Plasma Physics in New Orleans focused on the hot, charged plasma gas that the sun blasts into space, which rattles the magnetosphere, or the magnetic field that wraps around the earth. Such solar wind can create geomagnetic storms that cause interruptions in cell phone service, can damage satellites, and knock out power grids.

Among other findings, the research provided detail on magnetic reconnection, which is an “explosive phenomenon” that happens when solar flares interact with Earth’s magnetic field, according to Phys.org. Also, a professor at Swathmore College in Pennsylvania used a plasma “wind tunnel” to simulate the signatures of solar wind’s magnetic turbulence. A team of scientists at the University of California Los Angeles, meanwhile, observed interactions between plasma magnetic waves in the laboratory. These waves, which interact with solar wind, could help explain hot plasma’s behavior.

Finally, a Columbia University graduate student and his advisor used a chamber filled with plasma and magnetic fields just like Earth’s atmosphere to unveil a connection between ionospheric currents and local space weather.

Magnetic reconnection has been a mystery for scientists. The phenomenon results in huge eruptions of plasma from the sun, but scientists have been unable to figure out how it transforms magnetic energy into particle energy. However, in the recent research, scientists were able to both identify how the transformation takes place and measure the amount of magnetic energy that transforms into particle energy.

The research was supported by the Department of Energy, particularly its Plasma Physics Laboratory.