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

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered in orbit last year – can observe the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, this occurs approximately every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the planet's poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out in any direction, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun launches two to three CMEs a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the star in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the solar surface threaten infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to human life, yet they impact 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 direct evidence that solar particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the scientist explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving six million people without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, causing chaos in Sweden and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at origin and track its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions watching our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others regarding watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," notes the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare allowing researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions in visible light, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues that show the intensity of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, scientists collaborated analyzing information gathered from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

Even though these figures seem incredibly large, the expert classifies it as a moderate event.

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions with energy content matching even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated happened during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The insights from this will help us work out the countermeasures to be adopted to protect satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.