The Day Earth Lost Half Its Satellites (Halloween Storms 2003)Turn back the clock to 2003. Solar Cycle 23 was winding down, and space weather forecasters were talking about how quiet things would soon become when, suddenly, the Sun unleashed two of the strongest solar flares of the Space Age. An X17 category blast hurled a CME into Earth's magnetic field only 19 hours later, sparking an extreme (G5) geomagnetic storm that caused auroras as far south as Texas. Satellite operators reported, "The majority of [low Earth orbiting] satellites were temporarily lost, requiring several days of around-the-clock work to reestablish [their positions]."