Blast of Radio Waves Larger Than Thought Possible Caused GPS Disruptions

 

On December 6th of 2006 a solar flare spawned an intense burst of electromagnetic radiation in the radio frequency band, including some at the same frequencies used by GPS hardware. 

 “The event is considered especially worrisome because it occurred during a ‘solar minimum,’ part of an 11-year cycle when sunspots and solar flares are least frequent. When the next ‘solar maximum’ arrives around 2011, researchers said, the disruptions to GPS devices and other satellite-based navigation instruments could be far more severe.

"’This radio event was 10 to 20 times bigger than anything we had measured before, or thought would reach Earth from the sun,’ said William Murtagh of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Environment Center, an organizer of the Washington conference on the increasingly important field of space weather.

‘It told us that when it comes to preparing for big solar events, we can never let down our guard,’ Murtagh said. ‘We really don't know what might be coming at us.’

Well that’s just dandy.   So we don’t know what we don’t know?

“Both the Air Force and NOAA have space-weather observatories, with telescopes situated around the world to keep the sun's surface and its flares continuously in view. NOAA's Space Environment Center, which puts out regular reports on space-weather dynamics and trends, is headquartered in Boulder, Colo.”

That’s comforting: continuously in view.   

   

The average distance to the sun is 92,900,000 miles.  Light from the sun takes 8 minutes, plus or minus, to travel the distance to the Earth.  So that means the sunlight we see, hence the sun we are viewing, is 8 minutes in the past.   

  

If the Sun went supernova, we would be living on borrowed time for approximately 8 minutes.  During that elapsed time the sun would appear normal to us even as it was expanding to engulf the earth.   

   

Consider this perspective: we are never more than 8 minutes from being incinerated.  Imagine that at any given moment you could be driving to work and cursing the traffic unaware that your trip had already been terminated, or preparing for a presentation that will never be given, or in the middle of a surgical procedure that is already sewed up, or flying in a plane that will never land, or … POOF!