Based on the collected data, the eruption consisted of two separate ejections which were able to reach exceptionally high strength as the interplanetary medium around the Sun had been cleared by a smaller CME four days earlier.[2] Had the CME hit the Earth, it is likely that it would have inflicted serious damage to electronic systems on a global scale.[2] A 2013 study estimated that the economic cost to the United States would have been between $0.6 and 2.6 trillion USD.[3] Ying D. Liu, professor at China's State Key Laboratory of Space Weather, estimated that the recovery time from such a disaster would have been about four to ten years.[4]