Kodaikanal Solar Observatory (KoSO) has digitized the longest continuous solar observations made on photographic plates/films over more than 100 years, making them available for community use. These solar observations can help scientists worldwide to study solar variability and its impact on climate over a longer time scale.

The data covers the period from 1904 to 2017 and includes one of the most homogeneous and extended sunspot data series for around 115 years (1921-2011). Researchers from two autonomous institutes under the Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology (DST), Govt. of India, have solved significant issues in the data to make it usable for scientific analysis.

The extended and updated sunspot area series for 1904-2017, is representing a beautiful butterfly diagram (Source: PIB)

The digitized data is available as open data and will be useful to researchers and students across the world. The solar observations can help us understand the behavior of the Sun in the past, and based on that, we can predict its future, which is crucial for our existence in the times that lie ahead.

Artificial Intelligence will be used to extract data from hand-drawn pictures of sunspots, which have been preserved at the KoSO, making it one of the oldest, rare, and continuous solar data sets. The data will be a vital asset for the solar community for understanding the fate of the Sun and shaping our plans for space exploration as the Sun is the driver for our space weather conditions.