India’s maiden space-based solar observatory, Aditya-L1, has unlocked critical new details about how solar storms evolve right from their birthplace. In a groundbreaking study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, scientists discovered that Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) do not expand outward like simple, symmetric bubbles as previously believed—instead, they twist and expand unevenly, a finding that could drastically improve space-weather forecasting and satellite protection.
Operating from the Sun-Earth L1 point since September 2023, Aditya-L1 relies heavily on its primary payload, the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC). Designed and fabricated by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) in collaboration with ISRO, the VELC captured an intense solar eruption on August 5, 2024. By combining VELC’s unique spectroscopic data—which tracks 1.8-million-Kelvin plasma via green emission lines—with NASA’s SDO spacecraft imagery and advanced 3-D modeling, researchers reconstructed the complete geometry of the CME.
Led by IIA PhD student and lead author Saurabh Tripathi, alongside corresponding author Dr. Tanmoy Samanta and co-author Jayant Joshi, the team found that uneven lateral expansion and an inclined axis created distinct Doppler shift patterns. Because a CME’s asymmetric shape directly alters how it interacts with the solar wind and experiences drag on its journey to Earth, mapping these early dynamics provides a vital missing link for protecting global communication networks and orbiting satellites.
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