what's twinkling got to do with it?

But it's not just the Earth's atmosphere that makes stars twinkle. The solar wind can have the same effect. When we look at radio waves coming from stars we see a lot of twinkling caused by refraction of the radio waves in the solar wind.

Space-weather storms happen when there's a change from a slow to a fast solar wind. Between the fast and slow solar winds there is a region where the wind is squashed, like cars in a traffic jam on a motorway. This is known as a compression region and it is the change in density across the compression region which causes the twinkling

When we detect a compression region, we know a solar storm is heading our way. By measuring how fast it's travelling, we can predict when it will arrive. And that's what I do... I look at distant stars that produce vast amounts of radio waves and see how much they twinkle due to the solar wind. This allows me to detect and measure any compression regions and so to provide space weather forecasts.