Our Sun is a furious mass of gases that emits radiation of all kinds, from the stuff that plants can convert to sugar through photosynthesis to high-energy particles and rays that would tear apart anything they came across on Earth.
On occasion, magnetic storms on the surface of the star can end up causing flares, an explosion on the Sun's surface that can release as much, in one go, as a sixth of the entire Sun's output per second. If the storms are particularly strong, they will erupt into coronal mass ejections (CMEs), huge clouds of plasma that travel at millions of miles per hour, consisting of energetic electrons and protons with smaller amounts of helium, oxygen and iron.