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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed into space last year – will be able to observe our star during its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, it comes roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees our star changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME can weigh of billions of tons and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

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

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the star in the center of our planetary system, and two, since events that take place on the solar surface endanger systems on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, but they do affect life on Earth through generating magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays from solar eruptions include northern lights, being a clear example that solar particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the scientist explains.

"But they can also make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, knock down electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar event in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving six million people without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to see what happens on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its path, it can work as advanced warning to switch off power grids and spacecraft redirecting them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

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

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the expert.

Essentially, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare to let researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon provide only during eclipses.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study solar events using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data that show how strong a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers collaborated to study information obtained from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale respectively.

Although these figures seem incredibly large, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions with energy content equal to greater levels.

"I consider the CME we analyzed happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The learnings from this will assist in developing the countermeasures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. They will also help us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.