Absolute Gadget

With most people abandoning traditional paper maps in favour of our favourite in-car gadget the satnav, we should all be getting to where we want to go, shouldn't we? It turns out that that natural phenomenon aurora borealis, which produces pretty lights in the sky without the aid of drugs, disrupts satellite signals and sends you off to the middle of nowhere.

According to boffins, these colourful light displays really mess up navigation and satnav turn into useless car furniture. Apparently, it's all down to the intense electrical activity that disrupts the signal being sent to the device.

"Space weather impacts on GPS include the introduction of range errors and the loss of signal reception, both of which can have severe effects on marine and aviation navigation, surveying, and other critical real-time applications," the researchers wrote in the American Geophysical Union's International Journal of Space Weather.

Professor Cathryn Mitchell, who lead research at the University of Bath's department of electrical engineering, said that the problem is only going to get worse over the next few years as sun activity increases.

She told the Telegraph: "We have just passed a minimum in activity but we are due to hit a maximum in 2012, which is the time when we would expect to see most disruption to GPS signals."

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