"Cosmic Storm" was actually an imprecise, catch-all term.
It included the high-speed streams of charged particles and intense electromagnetic waves released by exploding stars in space, as well as solar winds produced by violent eruptions during periods of peak sunspot activity.
It also included energy fluctuations caused by all manner of strange celestial changes.
Ever since the Big Bang 15 billion years ago, stars and galaxies had continually expanded outward at tremendous speed. This phenomenon was known as the "theory of cosmic expansion."
The gravity holding planets together should have slowed this expansion, but that wasn't what had happened. The universe was still expanding at an accelerating rate, and that meant "storms" continued to rage throughout its endless reaches.
After years of obsessive research into "Cosmic Storms," Reed Richards had summarized such cosmic "phenomena" as follows: when cosmic matter was born or died, it collided with other matter, creating a form of activity.
These events released high-energy particles over a relatively wide area, giving rise to what was known as a Cosmic Storm.
In the nearly 150 years of recorded history on Earth alone, there had been more than forty documented instances of "Cosmic Storms" reaching the planet. The most notable was the first "Carrington Event" in 1859.
Earth's atmosphere filtered out large amounts of harmful radiation and energetic particles. Even the negligible aftershocks of a storm, however, could cause massive power outages and disasters such as the failure of ships' and aircrafts' navigation systems.
In front of the Space Laboratory's viewing screen, four heads were pressed close together as they watched images of a storm forming from the interaction between radiant energy vortices and swirling gases.
Everything on the screen looked like a surging sea painted in brilliant watercolors. A mass of overlapping silver rings enveloped it as it