Chandrayaan-2 detects solar proton events: ISRO

The instrument on January 18 also recorded coronal mass ejections, a powerful stream of ionised material and magnetic fields.

A Large Area Soft X-ray Spectrometer (CLASS), a payload on-board Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter, has detected solar proton events which significantly increase the radiation exposure to humans in space, the Indian Space Research Organisation has said.

The instrument on January 18 also recorded coronal mass ejections (CMEs), a powerful stream of ionised material and magnetic fields, which reach the Earth a few days later, leading to geomagnetic storms and lighting up the polar sky with auroras, the ISRO said on Wednesday.

"Such multi-point observations help us understand the propagation and its impact on different planetary systems," it said.

When the sun is active, spectacular eruptions called solar flares occur that sometimes also spew out energetic particles (called solar proton events or SPEs) into interplanetary space.

Most of these are high energy protons that impact space systems and significantly increase radiation exposure to humans in space. They can cause ionisation on large scales in the earth's middle atmosphere, the space agency said.

Many intense solar flares are accompanied by CMEs, a powerful stream of ionised material and magnetic fields, which reach the earth a few days later, leading to geomagnetic storms and lighting up the polar sky with auroras.

Solar flares are classified according to their strength. The smallest ones are A-class, followed by B, C, M and X. Each letter represents a 10-fold increase in energy output. This means that an M class flare is 10 times more intense than C-class flare and 100 times intense than B-class flare, the ISRO said.