Why Solar Storms Make Your GPS Lie to You

Your GPS says turn right — but the road's 10 metres to your left. A storm 93 million miles away moved you.

GPS satellites sit 20,000 kilometres up, beaming precise signals. So how does a storm on the Sun corrupt your location?

Your phone times each satellite's signal and trilaterates your position. But it must cross the ionosphere — a layer packed with charged particles. Normally that slows it slightly, and GPS corrects for it. A solar storm floods the ionosphere with X-rays and charged particles, spiking its electron density. The denser the plasma, the slower the signal — it arrives late, and your phone reads the delay as extra distance, placing you where you're not.

And it's no quick blip: a big storm can scramble GPS for hours. In May 2024, a solar storm pushed errors past 70 metres and froze GPS-guided tractors across the US farm belt — an estimated half-billion-dollar hit. The real culprit? Scintillation — the signal flickering so fast receivers lose lock entirely.

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