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Regarding Aditya-L1, the year 2026 will be like no other.

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed into space last year – will be able to observe the Sun during the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes roughly every 11 years when 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 changing from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out in any direction, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun launches two to three CMEs a day," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more daily."

Studying CMEs ranks among the most important scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to study the star at the centre of our planetary system, and two, since events occurring on the solar surface threaten infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to people, but they do affect our planet through generating geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME are auroras, being direct evidence that charged particles from our star journey to Earth," the expert explains.

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

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event ever recorded was the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, causing chaos in Sweden and some other European airports
• In February 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to observe events in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at the source and track its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to shut down power grids and spacecraft redirecting them to safety.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other solar missions watching our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others when it comes to watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, blocking the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – something the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and heat energy – key clues that show the intensity a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated analyzing the data obtained from a major solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

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

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

Although the numbers make it sound massive, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

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

"I consider the CME we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard for future comparison assessing what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The learnings gained will assist in developing the countermeasures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.