To most people, the sun is a key factor in booking holidays and planning days out.

We don’t consider it at all when we’re sending text messages or tapping a destination into a sat nav.

But maybe we should. Intense sun storms can affect earth, and if they are powerful enough, they can disrupt communication networks as well as power lines and other supply systems.

As we rely more and more on space technology such as satellites, we are becoming more vulnerable to changes in space weather.

Space weather – the significance of which has been raised in Parliament – investigates the changing environmental conditions in the area between the sun’s atmosphere and the earth’s atmosphere.

And, as meteorologists watch the weather here on earth and make predictions as to what will happen in the future, scientists and academics are observing its source – 93 million miles away on the sun, and reporting any changes.

The University of Bradford is one of only a handful of centres involved in automatically predicting solar weather. Their continually-updated log of information – complex to the untrained, non-scientific eye – is accessed by NASA and the European Space Agency.

“As we become more scientifically advanced, you would think we would become more protected, but we become more vulnerable,” says Professor Rami Qahwaji, professor of visual computing at the university.

Adds Dr Stan Ipson, research fellow in applied imaging: “The sun is a major energy source that erupts all the time. It emits electro-magnetic radiation and particles which are charged, and these fly to earth,”

Solar flares are intense explosions on the sun that spew enormous amounts of energy into space. Another type of explosion is Coronal Mass Ejection – huge bubbles of plasma ejected from the sun that carry energy and magnetic fields. It takes around eight minutes for solar flares to reach earth, while Coronal Mass Ejections take hours. Both can disrupt radio transmissions and cause damage to satellites and electrical transmission lines.

“These particles carry energy,” says Dr Ipson, “If we are hit by a huge number with massive energy it can distort the earth's atmosphere.”

The particles can also produce displays of ‘northern lights’ in the southern hemisphere. “In 1859, extreme solar eruptions enabled people in Cuba and Hawaii to see the northern lights,” says Prof Qahwaji.

For the perfect solar storm other conditions also have to exist at the time of the eruption. “The extreme activity has to be facing earth in perfect alignment and causes the solar wind magnetic field polarity to become negative – southward. This could cause dramatic changes in earth’s magnetic field,” says Prof Qahwaji.

“There was a huge event this year on the far side of the sun, so we have been lucky.”

Predictions generated by the Bradford team – which are made for several hours in advance – involve studies of specially-magnified images of the sun, which are constantly analysed by intelligent computer programmes.

The existence and impact of solar flares was first recognised in 1859, when wealthy Victorian scientist and amateur astronomer Richard Christopher Carrington spotted explosions on the sun from his home observatory. At the same time, people began to notice problems sending telegraphs.

The giant magnetic fields generated by such activity affects all electronics, especially wireless devices.

Adds Dr Ipson: “The sun is outside our control. What has changed is what we are doing here. We are sending satellites into space and relying on GPS and other satellite-based systems and electrical-based systems on the ground.”

The potential impact of a solar storm could be huge, affecting space-based infrastructure including satellites and space stations, along with power stations, grid systems, pipelines and airlines. Transformers – which are difficult and costly to replace – are particularly susceptible. Solar activity, which follows an 11-year cycle of minimum and maximum – we are entering a ‘maximum’ period now – can affect aeroplane communications and create navigational problems. This is more prevalent on routes across the poles, where the effects of the solar storms and resulting levels of radiation are more severe,” says Prof Qahwaji.

“On these occasions, they would need to fly a different route, which would have cost and time implications”

Satellites could even fall to earth if the atmosphere becomes distorted due to solar storms.

“You need to know when something is happening so you can turn off your device, satellites and infrastructure until it passes,”says Dr Ipson, “Our best defence is to design better-engineered satellites and electrical systems that can take the blow.”

Adds Prof Qahwaji: “We also need better prediction capabilities. The problem with these events is that they are very rare and could be very severe.”