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

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – will be able to watch our star when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes roughly every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel in any direction, even toward our planet. At top speed, it would take an ejection 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun launches two to three CMEs daily," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be over ten each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the key research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the star at the centre of our solar system, and two, since events occurring on the Sun endanger infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to human life, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, which are direct evidence that charged particles from our star journey to Earth," the expert clarifies.

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

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out telegraph lines across the globe
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, causing disruption in Sweden and various European airports
• In February 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

There are other space observatories watching the Sun, India's spacecraft holds an edge compared to rivals when it comes to watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining eruptions in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data that show the intensity a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers collaborated analyzing information 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 – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Even though the numbers seem massive, the expert classifies it as a moderate event.

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions carrying power matching even more than that.

"In my view the CME we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The learnings gained will assist in work out the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in orbit. They will also help achieving a better understanding of our space environment," he concludes.