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At any moment, the predictions of your local weather forecaster might be suddenly superseded by space weather, a special breed of storms fomented on the Sun and launched toward Earth with potentially devastating consequences.

Most of the time, the solar wind billowing out from the Sun blows right past our planet without causing any ill effects whatsoever, but today, with our navigation and communications technology dependent on satellite based systems, a downdraft of space weather could disrupt entire countries.

Dava Sobel turns to Aditya L1, a new satellite under construction in India, to learn how many countries are developing their own eyes to watch the sun from space.

To know the Sun is an age-old dream of humankind. For centuries, astronomers contented themselves with analysing small sips of sunlight collected through specialised instruments. They chased after eclipses that exposed otherwise hidden layers of the Sun\\u2019s substance, and they launched Earth and Sun-orbiting observatories to monitor our star from space. Today, several satellites \\u2018watch\\u2019 our star from outer space. In August 2018, NASA\\u2019s Parker Solar Probe, set off on a mission to go so far as to \\u2018touch the sun\\u2019 for the first time.\\n \\nOur view of the sun from here is relatively murky, but it\\u2019s a trade-off we Earthlings have to accept: the protective bubble of the Earth\\u2019s magnetic sphere and atmosphere provides air to breathe and a shield against harmful radiation, but it distorts our view of the heavens. Nevertheless, astronomers have managed to piece together an understanding of the stars, and especially the Sun itself: how it\\u2019s constructed, how it behaves, how it came to be, forming from a vast cloud of cold hydrogen gas and the dust of older stars in a sparsely populated region of the Milky Way.

In five programmes, author Dava Sobel orbits the sun, getting as close as she dares, to understand the immense relationship we have with our nearest star.

Music composed by Chris O'Shaughnessy.\\nProducer: Jeremy Mortimer and Dakshiani Palicha

Audio for this programme was updated on 21 September 2020.

(Photo: An M9-class solar flare erupting on the Sun's northeastern hemisphere. Credit: Nasa/Solar Dynamics Observatory via AFP/Getty Images)