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Regarding Aditya-L1, the year 2026 is expected to be like no other.

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit last year – can watch our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards our planet. At top speed, it would take an ejection about half a day to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star launches two to three CMEs a day," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect them to be 10 or more each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the star in the center of our solar system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the solar surface threaten systems on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, but they do affect life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in near space, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME are auroras, which are a clear example that solar particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, knock down electrical networks and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar event ever recorded was the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, causing chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft 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 watch its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to shut down power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other space observatories observing our star, India's spacecraft holds an edge compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk permitting continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, even during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and heat energy – crucial data indicating how strong of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers worked together analyzing 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 totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

Even though the numbers make it sound incredibly large, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock which wiped out prehistoric life on Earth carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions with energy content equal to even more than that.

"I consider the CME we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard that we'll be using assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The insights gained will assist in work out protective measures to implement to protect spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.