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

It's the first time the observatory – that entered in orbit last year – will be able to watch the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, this occurs roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles swapping positions.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of charged particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel in any direction, even toward our planet. At top speed, it would take an ejection about half a day to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star emits two to three CMEs a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect there will be over ten daily."

Researching CMEs is one of the most important scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and two, since events that take place on the solar surface threaten infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to people, but they do affect life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations of a CME include northern lights, being a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the expert explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite fail, knock down electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting millions without power for hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft failing

If we are able to see events in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at the source and track its path, this serves as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other solar missions watching our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – something the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions in visible light, letting it determine eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data indicating how strong of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

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

This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

At origin, the heat reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

Even though these figures make it sound incredibly large, the expert classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs with energy content matching greater levels.

"I consider the CME we evaluated happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he says.

"The insights from this will help us work out the countermeasures to implement to protect spacecraft in near space. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.