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

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – which was placed in orbit last year – can watch the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, this occurs approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It sees our star changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

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

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the key scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the star in the center of our planetary system, and two, because activities that take place on the Sun threaten infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to human life, but they do affect our planet by causing geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays from solar eruptions include northern lights, being direct evidence that charged particles from our star journey toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, disable power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar event ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting millions in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and some other 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 detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at the source and watch its path, it can work as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other space observatories watching the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

Essentially, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – crucial data that show the intensity of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers worked together to study the data gathered from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale each.

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

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs with energy content equal to greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun 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 learnings gained will help us work out the countermeasures to be adopted to protect satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.