Satellite pay-TV subscribers in South Africa are warned about possible disruptions to their TV viewing and services on Saturday due to an unusually strong solar flare.
The solar flare can likely cause disruption to people watching and making use of the satellite TV services of MultiChoice's DStv, StarTimes Media SA and On Digital Media's (ODM) StarSat and Platco Digital's OpenView HD (OVHD).
The South African National Space Agency (Sansa) has warned that South Africans can expect electrical and satellite systems like GPS navigation, the internet, DStv and even parts of the power grid to be impacted or interrupted on Saturday.
Two strong solar flares were ejected from the Earth's sun on Thursday - the second one the strongest in over a decade - and it will reach our planet on Saturday morning, travelling at 1 200 km/s.
According to Sansa this coronal mass ejection (CME) is expected to create a geomagnetic storm when it reaches Earth tomorrow.
When the sun's radiation hits the Earth, it causes the outer atmosphere to heat up, and expand.
These changes in the atmosphere leads to disruption of satellite signals used by satellite television services - especially so-called "geostationary satellites" that remain in the same space above certain parts of the Earth and typically have weaker signals than non-geostationary satellites.
When interference occurs, TV sound and picture quality degrades or is replaced by static.
