SAN ANTONIO - 'We had, basically, very intense explosions at the sun. And these are basically bursts of radiation that shoots into space. And the Earth was in
With the recent cellular outage, experts are sharing that it's quite unlikely that solar flares were the reason. SAN ANTONIO - With the recent cellular outage, experts are sharing that it's quite unlikely that solar flares were the reason.
"We had, basically, very intense explosions at the sun. These are basically bursts of radiation that shoots into space and the Earth was in the way," says Manager of the Heliophysics section at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Dr. Maher Dayeh.He notes that the sun had three large solar flares Wednesday night and early Thursday morning. This was from an active region in the sun. "There's lots of activity happening there. We already saw 2 X-Class flares and 1 M-Class flare. And that is something really big," says Dayeh. Big, but not uncommon. He notes that these flares have always happened, but we notice them more as we've become so reliant on technology. However, the particular outages happening on Thursday are unlikely to be related to the solar flare activity. "They are unlikely to be the causes of the outages. Just simply because of the timing. It would have been night time. So we were pointing in the wrong direction. We were pointing away from the sun, says Dr. Angelo Speck. Speck is Chair of the Department of Physics & Astronomy at UTSA. She notes that the main solar flare disruption affects your ability to listen to your radio. It generally affects lower frequency, but it can affect all different frequencies," says Speck."For this to produce these three and clearly it's still active. We may see more. So, we will see in the coming days," says Dayeh. In the end, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration agreed with local experts, saying in a statement: "While solar flares can affect communication systems, radar, and the Global Positioning System, based on the intensity of the eruption and associated phenomena, it is highly unlikely that these flares contributed to the widely reported cellular network outages."
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