Astronomers reveal how solar blast lit up Indian skies

AURORAS IN LADAKH

- INDO-ASIAN NEWS SERVICE

Astronomers at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), an autonomous institute under the Department of Science and Technology (DST), have decoded the series of powerful solar eruptions resulting in rare northern lights dancing across Ladakh's night skies in May 2024.

The solar eruptions, called Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), are massive ejections of magnetised plasma from the Sun’s corona. The CMEs can cause geomagnetic storms capable of disrupting satellite operations, communication systems, and power grids.

The IIA team showed that the great geomagnetic storm that started 10th May 2024 was linked to a rare sequence of six different CMEs erupting in succession, associated with both solar flares and filament eruptions from an interacting complex active region on the Sun.