Earth’s atmosphere is much more sensitive to ripples of radiation from the sun than scientists previously believed, new research by Queen’s University Belfast has found.

Solar flares, which are sudden and intense bursts of energy from the sun’s magnetic field, happen regularly.

Understanding how they impact the Earth’s atmosphere is important as very powerful flares can cause inaccuracies in GPS systems and, in extreme cases, can cause total radio blackouts, where all signal is lost.