CNN Central News & Networks / ITDC India ePress / ITDC News /Agencies/ Bhopal: CNN Central News & Networks / ITDC India ePress / ITDC News / Agencies, Bhopal: India’s first space-based solar mission, Aditya-L1, has challenged scientists’ long-held understanding of massive eruptions from the Sun. Using data from Aditya-L1, scientists at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bengaluru, have found that huge plasma eruptions from the Sun do not always spread uniformly like spherical bubbles. Their expansion can be uneven in different directions, and they can also form tilted, asymmetric shapes.
The study is based on an eruption on the Sun on August 5, 2024. Its findings have been published in the research journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Scientists analysed spectroscopic data from the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) on Aditya-L1 by combining it with images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and three-dimensional modelling.
How the mystery of the Sun’s eruption emerged: These eruptions from the Sun are called coronal mass ejections (CMEs). In them, hot plasma and magnetic fields spread into space in large quantities. VELC used Doppler spectroscopy to determine the speed of the plasma. Its data showed changes in the wavelength of light indicating that some material from the eruption was moving toward the instrument viewing in Earth’s direction, while some was moving in the opposite direction. When scientists tried to explain these data with a uniform-expansion model, it did not match the actual observations. Instead, a model with a tilted axis and uneven lateral expansion produced better results.
Space weather forecasting will improve: Solar eruptions moving toward Earth can affect satellites, communication networks and navigation systems. The shape and expansion of an eruption can influence its speed and the time it takes to reach Earth. Scientists believe this Aditya-L1 finding could help make more accurate forecasts in the future about the direction, speed and possible effects of solar storms.
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