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

It's the first time the observatory – that entered in orbit recently – will be able to watch the Sun during 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.

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

Composed of charged particles, a CME can weigh of billions of tons and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km each 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 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star emits a few solar eruptions a day," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect there will be 10 or more daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the star at the centre of our planetary system, and two, since events that take place on the Sun threaten infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to human life, yet they impact our planet through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME include northern lights, which are a clear example that solar particles from our star journey to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite fail, knock down power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event in history occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving millions without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection caused 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, measure its heat at the source and track its path, this serves as a forewarning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

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

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

In other words, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study eruptions in visible light, enabling it to determine eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data that show the intensity of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

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

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale each.

Even though the numbers seem incredibly large, the scientist classifies it as a moderate event.

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions with energy content matching greater levels.

"I consider the CME we evaluated happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The insights from this will assist in work out protective measures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of our space environment," he concludes.