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

It's the first time the observatory – that entered into space recently – can watch our star during its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, it comes approximately every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards our planet. At top speed, it would take an ejection 15 hours to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star launches a few solar eruptions daily," says a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect them to be over ten each day."

Researching CMEs is one of the key scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, since events that take place on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to human life, yet they impact our planet through generating magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, including Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions include northern lights, being a clear example that solar particles from our star journey toward our planet," the scientist explains.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar event ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving millions without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

If we are able to observe what happens on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at the source and track 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 Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories watching our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data that show how strong of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists collaborated analyzing the data gathered from a major solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale each.

Even though these figures make it sound incredibly large, the expert classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs with energy content matching even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed happened during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard for future comparison to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he says.

"The insights from this will assist in work out the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.