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Regarding Aditya-L1, 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit recently – can observe the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, this occurs roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It involves our star changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out toward various directions, even toward the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star emits a few solar eruptions daily," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect there will be 10 or more daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the most important scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the star in the center of our solar system, and secondly, since events that take place on the Sun endanger systems on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to human life, yet they impact life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most spectacular displays of a CME include northern lights, which are a clear example that charged particles from Sun journey to Earth," the scientist explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm in history was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, causing disruption across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to observe events in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at origin and track its path, this serves as advanced warning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

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

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

In other words, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare to let scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique that can study eruptions in visible light, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and heat energy – crucial data indicating how strong a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, researchers worked together to study information obtained from a major CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

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

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions carrying power matching greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we analyzed happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison assessing what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The learnings from this will help us developing protective measures to implement safeguarding satellites in near space. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.