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

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – which was placed into space last year – can watch our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, it comes roughly every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward our planet. At top speed, it would take a CME 15 hours to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect there will be over ten daily."

Studying CMEs ranks among the most important scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to learn about the star at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the Sun threaten systems on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to people, but they do affect our planet through generating magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, which are a clear example that charged particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting millions without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

If we are able to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at origin and watch its path, it can work as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories watching the Sun, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others regarding watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size 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, including during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

In other words, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let scientists constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study eruptions in visible light, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data indicating how strong a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

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

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

Even though these figures seem massive, the expert classifies 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, we could see eruptions carrying power matching even more than that.

"I consider the CME we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says.

"The insights from this will assist in developing protective measures to implement to protect satellites in near space. They will also help achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.