Y. H. Zhou

The Sun regularly produces explosions that hurl huge clouds of charged particles into space. Such a cloud travels toward Earth and can knock out satellites, disrupt radio communications, and even leave cities without electricity.

The Sun sometimes produces giant clouds of plasma that try to escape into space. But often they fail: an invisible magnetic cage keeps them near the surface. Such failed eruptions are called "trapped." Scientists built a computer model to understand exactly how this cage works.