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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – can observe the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

As per research, it comes approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It sees our star transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel in any direction, even toward the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star emits two to three CMEs a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect them to be 10 or more each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the key research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections offer a chance to learn about the star at the centre of our planetary system, and two, since events occurring on the solar surface threaten systems on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

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

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are a clear example that charged particles from Sun journey to Earth," the scientist explains.

"But they can also cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, disable electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm ever recorded was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting millions in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, leading to disruption in Sweden and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

If we are able to see events on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at origin and watch its path, it can work as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and satellites redirecting them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories observing our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining eruptions in visible light, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data that show how strong a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's peak solar activity period, scientists worked together analyzing information obtained from a major CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

At origin, the heat reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale each.

Even though the numbers seem incredibly large, the expert describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions with energy content equal to greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says.

"The insights from this will assist in work out the countermeasures to be adopted to protect spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.