On the sidelines at European Space Weather Week 2018, in Leuven, Belgium, ESA Web TV caught up with three scientists taking part in this gathering, Europe's foremost event focussed how our Sun affects our planet through the phenomenon known as space weather.

We spoke with Alexi Glover, ESA's Space Weather Service Network Manager, Jesse Andries, a scientist at the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Brussels, and Kirsti Kauristie, a researcher and group leader at the Finnish Meteorological Institute in Helsinki.

Each guest provided a short but enlightening answer to a single question related to their field of research, and we asked:

•     How does Europe manage and distribute space weather data?
•     What do we observe when we study the Sun?
•     What are the northern lights?