Though a ?spectacular? eruption on the surface of the sun sent charged particles hurtling towards Earth yesterday, Bermuda seemed likely to be unaffected by the explosion.

However reports stated scientists as saying communications elsewhere could be disrupted for a period of about a week and fire-fighting efforts in California, relying on satellite communication, could be hampered. Such explosions on the face of the sun are not uncommon, however scientists observed the biggest such explosion in 30 years shortly before 7 a.m. Bermuda time on Tuesday. The particle cloud produced was 13 times bigger than Earth and careened towards us at over one million miles per hour. Such strong geomagnetic storms can produce colourful auroras in the night sky.

But even if we could have seen the aurora produced by the solar explosion last night, the Bermuda Weather Service said it would have been obscured by cloudy skies. When contacted yesterday airport operations manager James Howes said he did not believe the explosion would have a significant impact on airport communications in Bermuda. A spokesperson for Cable & Wireless said the company had experienced ?no impact? from the solar explosion by yesterday afternoon.