Sat-nav devices face big errors as solar activity rises

Researchers say the Sun is awakening after a period of low activity, which does not bode well for a world ever more dependent on satellite navigation. The last time the Sun reached a peak in activity, satellite navigation was barely a consumer product. Solar flares – vast exhalations of magnetic energy from the Sun’s surface – spray out radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum, from lowenergy radio waves through to high-energy gamma-rays, along with bursts of highenergy particles toward the Earth. The radiation or waves that come from the Sun can make sat-nav receivers unable to pick out the weak signal from satellites from the solar flare’s aftermath. There is little that current technology can do to mitigate this problem, with the exception of complex directional antennas used in military applications.