Researchers studying a solar eruption on 5 August 2024 found evidence that it expanded unevenly close to the Sun. Their study of the event combines measurements from India’s Aditya-L1 observatory with images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.
ISRO highlighted the findings on 3 November 2026. The result offers a way to examine the early shape of one coronal mass ejection, or CME, a cloud of magnetised gas released by the Sun. It does not show that space weather forecasts have become more accurate.
What Aditya-L1 could see
NASA’s images tracked the eruption across the sky. Aditya-L1’s Visible Emission Line Coronagraph, called VELC, added a different measurement: shifts in the light from hot gas that showed motion both towards and away from the observer. Those motions are difficult to judge from an image alone.
The researchers compared the observations with simplified three-dimensional models. A tilted model with uneven sideways expansion reproduced the pattern in the measurements more closely than the symmetric versions they tested. The authors say this is a qualitative comparison, not a unique reconstruction of the eruption’s exact shape or speed.
Why the result matters
NASA explains that Earth-directed solar eruptions can affect satellites and communications. A clearer account of how a CME develops near the Sun could eventually help the models used to track its journey. That possible forecasting benefit remains to be tested. The study examined one eruption; it did not establish a new forecast method or claim that this event affected Earth.
