How can this happen?
I recently clicked this picture on my TV. This screen is shown for about 5 mins. Can anyone explain how the sun can interfere with the satellite if both are emitting two different wavelengths of light? And has it anything to do with solar flares?
I recently clicked this picture on my TV. This screen is shown for about 5 mins. Can anyone explain how the sun can interfere with the satellite if both are emitting two different wavelengths of light? And has it anything to do with solar flares?
1 Answer
Sun outage is caused by solar radiation drowning out the signal from the satellite.
Explanation:
The Sun emits radiation of a large range of frequencies. This includes radiation at the frequencies the satellites are using to communicate with the ground stations.
When the ground receiver, satellite and the Sun are in alignment, the radiation from the Sun swamps the receiver. It can't separate the signal from the satellite from the noise from the Sun. This causes the outage.
In fact satellite dishes are designed to focus the radio signal from the satellite onto the receiver. When the alignment occurs, the satellite dish focuses the Sun's radiation. This can result in the receiver getting very hot and it can even be damaged.
Typically sun outage happens for up to about 10 minutes per day on the days around the March and September equinoxes.
