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For Aditya-L1, the year 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit last year – will be able to watch the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, it comes roughly every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star launches a few solar eruptions a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated there will be 10 or more daily."

Researching CMEs is one of the key research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to human life, yet they impact life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, which are a clear example that charged particles from our star journey toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

"But they can also make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event in history was the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving millions without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports
• In February 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

If we are able to observe events in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at the source and track its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft and move them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories watching our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, even during solar events," notes the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study solar events in visible light, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data indicating how strong of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, researchers collaborated analyzing the data obtained from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons respectively.

Even though the numbers make it sound incredibly large, the expert describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs with energy content matching greater levels.

"In my view the CME we analyzed to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard for future comparison assessing what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he says.

"The insights from this will help us work out the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in orbit. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.