Scientists are saying strong solar flares cause Global Positioning System receivers to fail, creating potentially disastrous situations.Cornell researchers say such failures could be devastating for GPS operations such as navigating passenger jets and stabilizing floating oil rigs. Graduate student Alessandro Cerruti and Professor Paul Kintner Jr. say large solar flares expected in the next five years or so could produce massive outages of all GPS receivers on the day side of the Earth.

“If you’re driving to the beach using your car’s navigation system, you’ll be OK,” said Kinter, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and head of the university’s GPS Laboratory. “If you’re on a commercial airplane in zero visibility weather, maybe not.”Cerruti accidentally discovered the effect while operating a GPS receiver in Puerto Rico, investigating irregularities in the plasma of the Earth’s ionosphere when a flare occurred, causing his receiver — and all other GPS receives on the sunlit side of the Earth — to suffer significant signal degradation. Via Cornell University Chronicle Online

Scientists are saying strong solar flares cause Global Positioning System receivers to fail, creating potentially disastrous situations.Cornell researchers say such failures could be devastating for GPS operations such as navigating passenger jets and stabilizing floating oil rigs. Graduate student Alessandro Cerruti and Professor Paul Kintner Jr. say large solar flares expected in the next five years or so could produce massive outages of all GPS receivers on the day side of the Earth.

“If you’re driving to the beach using your car’s navigation system, you’ll be OK,” said Kinter, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and head of the university’s GPS Laboratory. “If you’re on a commercial airplane in zero visibility weather, maybe not.”Cerruti accidentally discovered the effect while operating a GPS receiver in Puerto Rico, investigating irregularities in the plasma of the Earth’s ionosphere when a flare occurred, causing his receiver — and all other GPS receives on the sunlit side of the Earth — to suffer significant signal degradation. Via Cornell University Chronicle Online