Blame the Northern Lights if your GPS screwed up

Have you noticed that your GPS unit is acting weird lately?

Yup, it's not only people who gets to be weird. ~LOL~

But no, seriously. This isn't a silly joke I used to pull out of you, but it has been scientifically proven that the natural light shows of the Northern Lights – or Aurora Borealis – interfere with the signals from global positioning satellites, which are used by sat-navs to pinpoint the locations of vehicles, boats and aircraft.

The aurora, which occur at both the North and South Poles, are caused by high-speed particles from the sun hitting the atmosphere and releasing energy as brightly coloured light.

The intense electrical activity created in the atmosphere by the Northern Lights decreases the accuracy of the system, telling drivers that they are on a road they are not actually on or causing receivers to lose track of their position entirely.

A study by the University of Bath's department of electrical engineering is the first to find that the aurora borealis, which can be seen from most parts of Britain, directly affects sat-navs.

Prof Cathryn Mitchell, who led the research, said: "Anywhere that the aurora is visible, it will cause disruption. Although most people in the UK can't see the aurora when it is happening, because of cloud or ambient light, it can still affect the GPS signal. We have just passed a minimum in activity but we are due to hit a maximum in 2012, which is when we would expect to see most disruption."

Makers of sat-nav systems admitted that the Northern Lights could cause problems for Global Positioning System (GPS) users, but insisted that drivers were not in danger.

Uh oh, please becareful you who live in UK. God speed... ;-p Read on the whole report on Telegraph.co.uk.

[blogged with my Treo 750v]