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Solar Flare Power Outage

March 9, 2012 by · Comments Off on Solar Flare Power Outage 

Solar Flare Power Outage, A giant solar flare is set to hit the earth, with scientists warning it could lead to power outages and disruption to flights in Scotland.

Solar flares happen when the sun blasts out an eruption of plasma, as it did on Tuesday. This eruption, which has been travelling at four million miles an hour is expected to hit the earth of Thursday afternoon.

Solar flares can disrupt satellite communications and instruments such as sat navs and flights may be disrupted as instruments on aircraft can be effected.

STV weatherman Sean Batty said: “This is likely to be the biggest eruption since 2006, after which period the sun went into a relatively quiet (cool) phase.

“Some scientists argue this may have been the reason why the northern hemisphere has experienced some very bad winters recently.

“The sun is starting to wake up after the quiet spell and we can expect over the coming years further large eruptions to take place.”

Another possible effect of the flare is that the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, may become particularly visible.

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