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For Aditya-L1, 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit recently – can observe our star during its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It involves our star transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel in any direction, even toward the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection about half a day to cover the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions a day," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect there will be 10 or more each day."

Researching CMEs ranks among the most important scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, since events that take place on the Sun endanger systems on Earth and in space.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays from solar eruptions include northern lights, being direct evidence that charged particles from Sun journey to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"But they can also make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm in history was the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid failed, leaving millions in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, causing chaos in Sweden and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to observe events on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at the source and track its path, it can work as advanced warning to switch off power grids and satellites and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other space observatories observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others when it comes to watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

Essentially, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions in visible light, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data that show the intensity of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, scientists worked together analyzing information obtained from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to millions of tons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

Even though these figures seem incredibly large, the expert describes it as a moderate event.

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs with energy content equal to greater levels.

"In my view the CME we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The learnings gained will help us work out protective measures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.