Houston Community News >> China Predicts Magnetic Storm
12/15/2006 China's National
Center for Space Weather Monitoring and Warning forecast on Friday that another
powerful magnetic storm may occur on Saturday, affecting the normal operation of
the world's man-made satellites and telecommunication systems.
A magnetic storm on a huge scale that was caused by a sunspot arrived on earth
on Friday, said Le Guiming, a Chinese researcher on space weather.
Powerful solar storms can disrupt shortwave communication and global positioning
systems (GPS), but usually will not affect the usage of mobile phones, said Le.
Pigeons may not be able to find way their home as magnetic storms change the
direction of magnetic force lines, Le said.
(Contributed by Xinhua)