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Regarding Aditya-L1, the year 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit recently – will be able to observe our star when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

As per scientific data, this occurs approximately every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It involves our star transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel in any direction, including towards the Earth. At top speed, it would take an ejection about half a day to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs a day," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect there will be 10 or more each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the star at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to human life, but they do affect our planet by causing magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are a clear example that solar particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, knock down electrical networks and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event ever recorded was the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting six million people without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, causing disruption in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft failing

If we are able to see events in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at the source and track its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other space observatories watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals when it comes to watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk permitting continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, even during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare allowing scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study eruptions in visible light, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – crucial data indicating how strong a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers collaborated to study information gathered from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Although these figures seem massive, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs carrying power equal to even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The insights from this will help us developing protective measures to implement to protect spacecraft in near space. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.