Solar flares stun stargazers with celestial light show

THE sun has blasted the earth with radiation in the biggest solar storm since 2005 and stargazers in southern Victoria and Tasmania could be in for a celestial treat. Charged particles from a solar flare began hitting Earth on Monday, with space weather experts warning the rush of radiation could disrupt global positioning system signals and electrical grids in polar regions. The storm could already be disrupting satellite communications as streams of radiation from the sun bounce across the Earth's magnetic field, which extends above the surface into space. ''With the radiation storm in progress now, satellite operators could be experiencing trouble, and there are probably impacts as well to high frequency [radio] communications in polar regions,'' physicist Doug Biesecker of the Space Weather Prediction Centre in Colorado told The Washington Post. Radio blackouts could force airlines to reroute flights between North America and Europe or Asia. Stargazers in southern Victoria and Tasmania may have witnessed auroras in the sky last night and the bursts of colourful light will also be visible tonight, Marc Duldig, president of the Australian Institute of Physics said. But he said the storm was unlikely to affect flights, electrical grids and satellite communication in Australia. ''The rest of the world will still be able to watch the Australian Open on their TV,'' he said. Mr Duldig said Australia's distance from magnetic poles shielded it from the impact of solar storms. In March 1989, 6 million people in Canada suffered nine hours of blackouts due to currents induced in their electricity grid by a solar storm. The latest solar storm is expected to peak early this morning, Mr Duldig said. The storm erupted with a burst of X-rays shooting out of the sun and was followed by a coronal mass ejection, a huge explosion of plasma. A plasma cloud pushed an advancing wave of energised protons at the Earth, triggering the radiation storm. The plasma cloud is hurtling towards Earth at about 6.4 million kilometres an hour.