Major solar flare disrupts Hurricane Ian disaster response - Space.com

Emergency responders dealing with the tragic aftermath of Hurricane Ian in Florida and the Carolinas may have suffered extra setbacks on Sunday (Oct. 2) as a major solar flare disrupted radio communications. .

The solar flare, a powerful X1 (the mildest form of the strongest category of flares) erupted from the sun on Sunday at 3:53 p.m.

Since solar flares travel at the speed of light, the burst of electromagnetic radiation caused an immediate radio blackout up to an hour long on the sun-facing side of the planet.

The affected region included the whole of the U.S., according to the SpaceWeatherWatch (opens in new tab). .

The disruption in the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere caused by the flare may also have made GPS positioning unavailable or less accurate, space weather physicist Tamitha Skov said on Twitter (opens in new tab). .

Related: Satellites can disappear in major solar storms and it could take weeks to find them.

A somewhat milder flare followed a few hours later, causing another radio blackout over the western Pacific and Australia, according to SpaceWeatherWatch (opens in new tab).

"Solar activity is forecast to be moderate to high, with flares likely from the large region in the northeast and the region in the northwest," the Met Office said in a statement (opens in new tab). .

She later took a career break to pursue further education and added a Master's in Science from the International Space University, France, to her Bachelor's in Journalism and Master's in Cultural Anthropology from Prague's Charles University. She worked as a reporter at the Engineering and Technology magazine, freelanced for a range of publications including Live Science, Space.com, Professional Engineering, Via Satellite and Space News and served as a maternity cover science editor at the European Space Agency

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