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.
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