SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 17 September 2025, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 25 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 11 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Which of the following is NOT a consequence of space weather events like solar flares and CMEs?

(a)Disruption of satellite communication
(b)Blackouts in radio frequencies
(c)Alteration of ocean currents
(d)Damage to power grids

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Space weather acts on the ionosphere, on spacecraft electronics and on long conductors such as power lines.

Ocean currents answer to other forces. NCERT lists heating by solar energy, wind, gravity and the Coriolis force, with density differences from temperature and salinity. Flares and CMEs are not among these drivers, so ocean currents are the odd one out: option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Disruption of satellite communication — A real effect. In the March 1989 solar storms some polar-orbiting satellites lost control for hours, and GOES weather satellite communications were interrupted.
(b)
Blackouts in radio frequencies — A real effect. A flare's X-rays ionise the ionosphere's D-layer on Earth's sunlit side, blacking out HF radio in the 3 to 30 MHz band, as NOAA describes.
(d)
Damage to power grids — A real effect. On 13 March 1989 a geomagnetic storm that followed two CMEs caused a nine-hour outage of Hydro-Québec's transmission system in Canada.

Concept

Space weather is the Sun's changing influence on the space around Earth. A solar flare is a sudden burst of radiation, and a coronal mass ejection (CME) is a cloud of charged particles and magnetic field thrown out from the Sun's corona.

NOAA grades the effects on three scales: R for radio blackouts, S for solar radiation storms and G for geomagnetic storms, the kind that can collapse power grids and disturb satellites.

The Sun does drive ocean currents, but through the steady solar heating NCERT lists, which makes equatorial water expand. That is ordinary sunlight, not a flare or a CME.

Key facts

NOAA's space weather scales: R (radio blackouts), S (solar radiation storms), G (geomagnetic storms).
Flare X-rays ionise the D-layer on Earth's sunlit side and cause HF radio blackouts.
The March 1989 geomagnetic storm caused a nine-hour outage of Hydro-Québec's transmission system.
NCERT's primary forces behind ocean currents: heating by solar energy, wind, gravity and the Coriolis force.

Study next

Aditya-L1 and the solar coronaLayers of the ionosphere and radio communicationOcean currents: primary forces, gyres and density-driven deep currents

Common traps

Rejecting power grids because a grid is on the ground: geomagnetic storms induce currents in long transmission lines.
Keeping ocean currents as a space weather effect because the Sun heats the sea: that is steady sunlight, not a flare or a CME.

The Sun's corona, where CMEs begin, is asked at 14 Sep 2025, 12:30, GA Q.12, which keys it as the part of the Sun that Aditya-L1 mainly studies.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Scientific Research — all 178 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.