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For Aditya-L1, 2026 will be like no other.

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit last year – can observe our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

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

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees our star changing from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up 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, including towards the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions daily," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect there will be 10 or more each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the most important research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and two, because activities occurring on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to human life, but they do affect our planet through generating geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are direct evidence that charged particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the scientist explains.

"But they can also make all the electronics on a satellite fail, knock down electrical networks and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm in history occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting millions without power for hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to observe events on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to shut down power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study solar events in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data indicating how strong of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated to study the data gathered from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Although these figures seem massive, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions with energy content matching greater levels.

"I consider the CME we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The learnings gained will help us work out protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.