Strong Solar Storm Could Disrupt Cell Phones, Pagers
UPDATED: 1:06 p.m. EDT October 24, 2003
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A geomagnetic storm caused some minor problems Friday as it raced toward Earth.
The storm was spawned by a huge eruption of gas on the sun. A government expert said that, so far, the storm has interfered with high-frequency airline communications and radio communications for teams on Mount Everest.
But officials said they're not seeing any major problems.
Power companies have been notified and are taking precautions to avoid blackouts. Experts say satellites are also at risk during such storms, but that cell phones aren't likely to be affected unless they rely on satellites.
Thursday, forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo., said they watched one of the largest sunspot clusters in years develop over the last three days.
They say that produced what is called a coronal mass ejection -- and that's similar to a solar flare.
A coronal mass ejection is an explosion of gas and charged particles into space from the corona -- the outermost layer of the sun's atmosphere.
Satellites in orbit high above the Earth's protective atmosphere are particularly susceptible to solar radiation. High-energy electrons from the storm can penetrate spacecraft, zapping the electronics and turning data bits from "0" to "1" or vice versa, causing the satellites to go into unexpected modes and maneuvers.
The list of major satellites knocked out by solar storms is long and costly. A recent example is the $200 million AT&T Telstar 401 satellite that experienced a massive power failure in 1997 only days after a solar storm arrived at Earth. Among networks affected were ABC, Fox and PBS, which used the satellite to beam programming to affiliate stations. The satellite also carried pager service, which was knocked out to 45 million people.
Three earlier-model satellites were also disabled in 1994 by a solar storm which triggered electrical failures in them.
The administration says a similar storm could happen again sometime over the next two weeks.
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