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Comment by guest_blog on March 8, 2012 at 4:10pm

NASA Warns: Possible Infrastructure Disruptions From Solar Flare

NASA models using data from the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) and the Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) have now provided more information about the two Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) associated with the two March 6 flares.

Such a CME could result in a severe geomagnetic storm, causing aurora at low latitudes,
with possible disruption to:

- high frequency radio communication
- global positioning systems (GPS)
- power grids.

Comment by guest_blog on March 8, 2012 at 3:49pm

A solar storm in the Earth's magnetic field has largely passed, but adverse effects could still occur, experts say.

"The freight train has gone by, and is still going by, and now we're just watching for how this is all going to shake out," said Joseph Kunches, a scientist with US weather agency Noaa.

Charged particles from the Sun will keep on passing the Earth until Friday.

There had been fears that this "coronal mass ejection" could wreak havoc with satellites or power grids on Earth.

However, up to this point, Dr Kunches said, "all told, it's not a terribly strong event".

The current coronal mass ejection (CME) - travelling at some 1,300km per second - began arriving at Earth on Thursday morning, after the release of two particularly strong solar flares earlier in the week.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17295337