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For Aditya-L1, 2026 will be like no other.

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – that entered in orbit recently – can observe the Sun during the peak of its solar cycle.

As per research, this occurs approximately every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It involves our star changing from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of charged particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME about half a day to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions a day," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be over ten daily."

Researching CMEs is one of the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and two, because activities that take place on the Sun threaten infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to people, but they do affect our planet by causing geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions include northern lights, being a clear example that charged particles from our star journey toward our planet," the expert explains.

"But they can also make all the electronics on a satellite fail, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar event in history was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, affecting six million people in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

If we are able to observe events on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at origin and track its path, it can work as advanced warning to shut down power grids and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other space observatories observing our star, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues that show the intensity a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's peak solar activity period, scientists collaborated to study information obtained from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller in scale each.

Even though the numbers seem massive, the expert describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs carrying power equal to even more than that.

"In my view the CME we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The learnings from this will help us developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.