Solar storm hits U.S. and Canadian farmers, causing GPS to malfunction in tractors at height of planting season
Kyiv • UNN
A solar storm caused GPS malfunctions on tractors in the United States and Canada during the peak planting season, forcing farmers to stop work.
In a number of US states, a solar storm prevented farmers from sowing, as the GPS system showed that farmers' tractors were turning over with steering failure. This was reported by UNN with reference to QZ and CBS News.
Details
Last weekend's solar storm caused navigation systems in agricultural machinery to malfunction in the United States. The failure occurred at the height of the sowing season in the Midwest and Canada.
On Saturday, John Deere sent out a text message to customers warning farmers that the accuracy of some tractor systems could be "severely compromised." "Base stations have been sending corrections that have been affected by the geomagnetic storm and have caused drastic changes in the field, and even some names have been drastically changed," the company wrote.
Farmers from South Dakota reported that they had problems with their equipment, and that the GPS system showed that their tractors were flipping over or the steering was not working, according to local media.
Messages posted by farmers on social media suggest that many have had to stop sowing.
Help
The Max Planck Society MPG confirms that solar storms affect the GPS signal, and this is due to stronger ionization of the Earth's surface. This phenomenon means that the Sun ejects large masses of particles into space. This leads to the fact that GPS signals from satellites take longer than usual to reach the receivers of GPS devices, because the signal transmission time from the satellite to the receiver plays an important role in calculating the location, and during solar storms, incorrect calculations can occur.
Context
On Friday, the Earth was hit by the strongest geomagnetic storm in 20 years. Intense solar activity sent bursts of radiation to the Earth, causing fluctuations in the upper atmosphere that led to power outages and disruption of radio and other technologies and infrastructure.
On Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center issued an unusual warning, informing the public of five coronal mass ejections aimed at Earth.
The Sun's radiation began to fall to Earth on Friday and continued until Sunday, causing a colorful aurora to fill the sky in many parts of the world.
In addition to the natural wonder, the geomagnetic storm also affected the operation of broadband and GPS satellites in orbit.
NOAA has classified the solar storm as a G5, or "extreme," the first of its kind since October 2003. The last CME observed on the Sun was associated with sunspot AR3664, which stretches for almost 124,300 miles (200,000 kilometers).
Addendum
There can also be a delayed effect on satellites in orbit, as solar plasma heats the atmosphere, increasing atmospheric drag, which knocks satellites out of orbit. In February 2022, a coronal mass ejection caused the loss of 38 commercial satellites, according to NASA.
Recall
A powerful solar storm caused a spectacular northern lights, which were visible across Ukraine, both in the north and south, for the first time in the last 20 years.
Earlier UNN reported: a strong geomagnetic storm on the Sun caused a spectacular display of the Southern Lights (Aurora Australis), which was visible in New Zealand and southern Australia: bright red and green colors lit up the sky before sunrise.
