Largest Solar Flare in 25 years on Oct 26th, 2014. Did you know about that?

Our own magnetosphere dampening the effects of these solar disturbances. Sometimes the Sun's solar lines hook up with our own lines from the Earth and cause a virtual hole along those lines. Charged particles somewhat like lightning can reach the Earth and cause outages along with power grids and Navigation Systems.

The Earth can oftentimes cover for the alignment with the shucking of plasma in the Plasmasphere potentially causing a boundary zone of dense material and thereby mitigating some of the potential problems that ensue.