An explosion on the sun released a massive plume of energized particles soaring 900,000mph through space that triggered blackouts in Australia and South Asia.
Reports surfaced Tuesday morning that noted ham radio operators and mariners had been disrupted around the two targets.
The long-duration flare was released Monday at 8:30pm ET and the solar storm reached our planet today shortly after 10am ET.
NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center shows there is a 45 percent chance of more communication disruptions in the coming days.
Physicists noted that the explosion was an M-class flare, which can cause small (R1) to moderate (R2) radio blackouts on the daylight side of the Earth.
The alert is largely for frequencies used by aviation communication, government time stations, weather stations, amateur radio and citizens band services, among other uses.
Physicist Dr Tamitha Skov told DailyMail.com in January: ‘Those who [are typically] impacted are people who rely on GPS/GNSS services, especially at high latitudes, as well as precision farmers and anyone using UAVs for reconnaissance, search and rescue, or aerial photography
Strong M-class flares, like what was observed Monday, can launch a coronal mass ejection (CEM), which are large clouds of plasma and magnetic field that erupt from the sun.
The ejection contains billions of tons of corona material from the sun’s surface.
CEMs can produce a geomagnetic storm that temporarily disrupts Earth’s magnetosphere and orbiting satellites by a solar wind shock wave.




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