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

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit last year – can observe the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, it comes approximately every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles swapping positions.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It involves the Sun transition from calm to stormy and features a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out toward various directions, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection 15 hours to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect them to be 10 or more daily."

Researching CMEs is one of the most important research goals of India's first solar observatory. One, because the ejections offer a chance to learn about the star in the center of our solar system, and two, because activities that take place on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to people, yet they impact our planet by causing geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME are auroras, which are direct evidence that solar particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, knock down power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disrupted air traffic control, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to see events in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at the source and track its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions watching our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during solar events," notes the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure eruption heat and heat energy – key clues that show the intensity of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated to study the data gathered from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

Even though these figures seem massive, the scientist classifies it as a moderate event.

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions with energy content equal to even more than that.

"In my view the CME we analyzed to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard for future comparison to evaluate what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The learnings from this will help us work out protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.