The ionosphere is the region of the Earth’s upper atmosphere where molecules and atoms are ionised by solar radiation, creating positively charged ions.
The area with the highest concentration of ionised particles is called the F-region, an area 150 to 800km above the Earth’s surface. This region plays a crucial role in long-distance radio communication, reflecting and refracting radio waves used by satellite and GPS tracking systems back to the Earth’s surface.
But according to scientists at Nagoya University in Japan, these transmissions can be disrupted by irregularities in the F-region. During the day, the ionosphere is ionised by the sun’s ultraviolet radiation, creating a density gradient of electrons with the highest density near the equator.
However, disruptions to this, which are known as an equatorial plasma bubble (EPB), can create areas of highly dense plasma which can delay radio waves and degrade the performance of GPS.
The researchers looked...