'Space hurricane' sweeping over our planet

A wave of charged particles from an intense solar storm is raising alerts about airline flights and satellite operations — and raising the prospect of stunning auroral displays. 

The storm began when a powerful solar flare erupted on the sun Monday, blasting a stream of charged particles toward our planet. This electromagnetic burst — called a coronal mass ejection, or CME — started hitting Earth somewhere around 10 a.m. ET Tuesday, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center.

Bill Murtagh, the center's program coordinator, said that the outburst was forcing airlines to change routes for some of their scheduled flights. "Most of the major airlines flying polar [routes], or even some non-polar, high-altitude routes, have taken action to mitigate the effect of this storm," he told msnbc.com.

At NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, Onsager said the level of solar radiation should gradually subside — unless the sun unleashes another big coronal mass ejection. "The expectation is that it will weaken and that it will decay over the next couple of days," he told msnbc.com.

The University of New Hampshire's Spence said "the chance for re-intensification is still possible because this active spot on the sun that created the initial havoc could go off again."

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