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

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – which was placed in orbit recently – can observe the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the frequency 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 a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel in any direction, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star launches a few solar eruptions daily," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect them to be 10 or more each day."

Studying CMEs is one of the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the Sun endanger infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to people, yet they impact life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, which are a clear example that charged particles from our star journey to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, knock down electrical networks and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid failed, leaving six million people without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, causing chaos across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to observe events on the Sun's corona 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 a forewarning to switch off power grids and spacecraft redirecting them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other solar missions observing our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge over others when it comes to watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

Essentially, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface to let scientists constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for next year's peak solar activity period, scientists worked together analyzing information gathered from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

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

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Although these figures make it sound incredibly large, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions with energy content equal to even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated happened during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he says.

"The insights from this will help us developing protective measures to be adopted to protect spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.