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For Aditya-L1, the year 2026 will be truly unique.

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – which was placed in orbit recently – will be able to watch our star when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

As per research, this occurs roughly every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star launches a few solar eruptions a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more daily."

Studying CMEs ranks among the key scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and two, because activities occurring on the solar surface endanger systems on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to human life, yet they impact life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in near space, where nearly 11,000 satellites, including many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME include northern lights, being a clear example that charged particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the expert clarifies.

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, knock down power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event in history occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid failed, affecting six million people in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at origin and track its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions observing our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare to let scientists constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data that show the intensity a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

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

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale each.

Even though the numbers make it sound incredibly large, the scientist classifies it as a moderate event.

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see 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 for future comparison to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The insights from this will assist in developing protective measures to implement to protect spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.