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Regarding Aditya-L1, 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered into space last year – will be able to observe the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, this occurs roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It sees our star transition from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and reach a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out in any direction, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection about half a day to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star launches a few solar eruptions a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect there will be over ten each day."

Studying CMEs is one of the key research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and two, because activities that take place on the solar surface threaten infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to human life, but they do affect life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, which are direct evidence that charged particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, causing chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at origin and watch its path, this serves as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other solar missions observing our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others when it comes to watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

In other words, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare to let researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon provide only during eclipses.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, letting it determine eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data that show how strong a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

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

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

At origin, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons respectively.

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

The space rock which wiped out prehistoric life on Earth carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs carrying power matching greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The learnings gained will help us developing protective measures to implement to protect satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.