PHILLIPS: We're following this massive solar storm. The fallout could actually reach earth today. We're talking about possible problems for satellites power grids, navigation systems such as GPS. Meteorologist Rob Marciano joining us to break it down and explain. It sounds kind of scary.</s>ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: You know, we're entering this period of solar activity that's going to be quite active not just now, but going forward through next year. And the flare that happened Sunday night, there was one that happened last Thursday so it's quite often. The flare that happened Sunday night was pretty strong, at least the radiation of it was. To give you a reminder when you have a sun spot that emits a solar flare that has radiation with it, it also has charged particles. So it's a two-prong event basically. The radiation gets here a little bit faster. That happened yesterday and last night. As a matter of fact, some planes, they don't like to fly over the polls because one it messes with the radio communications. And Two, the x- rays, from this radiation, it's not -- you don't want to get zapped with too many x-rays. Planes were diverted because of that. The charged particle or what we call the Coronal Mass Ejection travels at that 1 million miles an hour. All right. 93 million miles of light, you do the math. It's coming at us right now. So this was not an</s>PHILLIPS: And be an iron man.</s>MARCIANO: But, Aurora Borealis, the northern lights tonight, could very easily get into the lower 48. So keep an eye the window and the sky.</s>PHILLIPS: Ok. All those astronomers out there, thanks a lot, Rob. Well, coming up in the next hour with Suzanne Malveaux, here in the Newsroom. If you're tired of finding that cheap airline ticket on line only to find that the price skyrockets when you try to pay. New rules for airline fees go into effect this week that will change the way airlines have to list fares. We're going to tell you the big differences, next.
Waiting for Solar Storm's Fallout