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For Aditya-L1, 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed into space recently – can observe our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes approximately every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It involves the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel in any direction, even toward the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take a CME about half a day to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star emits two to three CMEs daily," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect them to be over ten daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and two, since events occurring on the Sun endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to people, but they do affect our planet by causing geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME are auroras, which are direct evidence that solar particles from our star journey toward our planet," the scientist explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite fail, disable electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting six million people in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to observe what happens on the Sun's corona and detect a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to shut down power grids and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions in visible light, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data indicating the intensity of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

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

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

At origin, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

Even though the numbers seem incredibly large, the expert classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid 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.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard for future comparison to evaluate what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The insights from this will help us developing protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.