Space weather can affect the Earth in several different ways and to different severities, but new research further helps scientists understand its nature and how it develops.

From disabling communications to causing cellular or GPS signal failure to major power outages, space weather can cause several hazards to Earth. Caused by powerful solar explosions of spatial material and magnetic fields, space weather can be hard to predict or prepare for.

According to a news release, an international team of scientists was able to measure this release of energy close-up. The energy released is temporarily stored in the Earth's magnetosphere and powers its radiation belts and puts a colorful aurora in the polar skies.

Researchers from the UCLA College of Letters and Science, the Austrian Space Research Institute (IWF Graz) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) were able to catch one of these releases of energy up close with six spacecraft orbiting Earth and NASA's first dual lunar orbiter, ARTEMIS.

The study was published Friday in the journal Science.

"The amount of power converted was comparable to the electric power generation from all power plants on Earth - and it went on for over 30 minutes," said Vassilis Angelopoulos, an Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences professor at UCLA, principal investigator for ARTEMIS and THEMIS and study lead author. "The amount of energy released was equivalent to a 7.1 Richter-scale earthquake."

The researchers said having six satellites to observe the energy release helped them get a clearer picture and more accurate reading of its effects.

"We have finally found what powers Earth's aurora and radiation belts," Angelopoulos said. "It took many years of mission planning and patience to capture this phenomenon on multiple satellites, but it has certainly paid off. We were able to track the total energy and see where and when it is converted into different kinds of energy."