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

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – which was placed in orbit last year – can observe the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, it comes roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It involves our star transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh of billions of tons and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out in any direction, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect them to be 10 or more daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the key scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to study the Sun in the center of our solar system, and two, because activities that take place on the Sun threaten infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to people, but they do affect life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, orbit.

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

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, disable power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm in history was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting millions in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at the source and watch its path, this serves as a forewarning to shut down power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions watching our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size that lets it effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare allowing scientists constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, it's unique that can study solar events in visible light, letting it measure eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data indicating how strong of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists worked together to study the data obtained from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison 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 and 21 kilotons each.

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

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions carrying power matching even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The learnings gained will help us developing the countermeasures to implement to protect spacecraft in orbit. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.