In Photoshop, create the motionless parts of your animation first. I started by making the Earth using the ellipse tool. I used the mixer brush tool to add continents on top of the blue-colored ellipse.
After adding continents to the Earth, I saved a satellite image of clouds from Google and placed it as an embedded in the Photoshop project. Resize it so that the whole Earth is covered by the clouds. Change the opacity so that the layer is more transparent (and you can see the Earth).
Then, use the eraser tool to erase the parts of the cloud layer outside the Earth ellipse.
After finishing the Earth, I added the other motionless parts of the animation using the ellipse tool again. You can change the settings of the ellipse using the top toolbar.
I also added text and an arrow to label the magnetosphere.
Once all the motionless parts of the animation are completed, it's time for the longer process of making all the frames you are going to use. This type of animation looks most fluid when there are many frames and small changes between frames. However, you need to strike a balance because it is time-consuming to make each frame. I chose to recreate each frame of the animation I was remaking because it was originally stop motion, but I could've done it freehand instead. I used the pen tool again to add the solar flares approaching Earth's magnetosphere. For the flares going around the magnetosphere, I used the curvature pen tool. After making each frame I exported it as a PNG.
Once all the frames are made, open a new composition in Adobe After Effects. Drag all your frames from your file folder to the timeline (bottom of screen) and arrange them in order.
Once you have all the frames in the composition, change the amount of time that each is shown by dragging the the colored bars in the timeline. I chose to do 5 frames per second.
Then, drag the end of your timeline to line up with the end of the last frame so the video ends there.
Play the video by pressing the space bar and make sure that it looks the way you want it to. Then, export the file by adding it to the Adobe Media Encoder Queue.
Once Adobe Media Encoder opens, click on the hyperlink under the format of the composition
Choose the file format you would like it to be exported as (I chose Animated GIF). Once done, click OK at the bottom of the right hand panel.
Now you should be back in the standard Media Encoder page. Press the play button in the top right to encode your file.
Once it encodes, you should be able to find it in your files in the location the output indicated.