View from Oban Bothy

View from Oban Bothy

Saturday 13 April 2013

Saturday 13th April, Coronal Mass Ejection


Don’t rely on your SatNav / GPS devices for navigation this weekend – Thursday’s large Solar Flare and subsequent CME could temporarily knock-out any such equipment. The CME backlash usually hits earth a few days after a solar flare….and that’s about now.


When a CME occurs large amounts of solar plasma are ejected from the sun, taking around 3 days to travel from the solar surface to earth. When this stuff eventually hits us the effects on radio communication and radio-related navigation equipment  are, er, interesting!


This CME may well bugger-up my radio activities this weekend. Ho hum.


Now the good news: events such as these can cause very spectacular auroral displays, the closer you get to the polar regions the more visible they become.


The time-lapse video clip above was taken from Wikipedia.


Have a read of this.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Tally-Ho! Whitworth Wander / Turkey Trot 2023

  Whitworth Wander – Turkey Trot, 27 th of a very wet December 2023 In memory of the late Brian Whitworth, a fine man, my friend, and a for...