When a burst of solar wind or a coronal mass ejection slams into Earth's magnetic field, the field lines on the sun-facing side compress and the magnetopause boundary moves inward — that's what the left side of the scene shows, scaled by the Kp index, the standard 0–9 scale used to grade geomagnetic storms. The aurora ring brightens as more energy is funnelled into the polar upper atmosphere.
The figure on the right represents the honest state of the human-health research: three physiological indicators, each tagged with how strong the actual evidence behind it is — not how dramatic it looks.
The most extreme geomagnetic storm on record, the 1859 Carrington Event, reached an estimated Kp of 9 and caused telegraph systems to spark and fail — but even for an event that size, direct, causal harm to human physiology has never been conclusively demonstrated.
Watch Earth's magnetosphere compress as solar wind and Kp storm intensity increase, then see how a human figure's heart-rhythm, sleep and headache indicators respond — each explicitly labelled with how strong the underlying evidence really is.
Rising Kp index and solar wind speed pull the magnetopause boundary inward and brighten the polar aurora rings, while the linked human figure shows three separately evidence-graded physiological responses instead of one exaggerated effect.
Drag the Kp and solar wind sliders, or press "Simulate 3-day storm" to watch a realistic rise-and-decay storm curve play out. Use the evidence filter to isolate only the effects with real research support.
Most population studies linking geomagnetic activity to headaches or mood find weak, inconsistent effects — while modest autonomic nervous system and heart-rate-variability shifts have somewhat firmer, if still limited, support.