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Regarding Aditya-L1, 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the observatory – that entered in orbit recently – can watch the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, it comes roughly every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of charged particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out in any direction, including towards our planet. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to cover the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star emits a few solar eruptions daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect them to be over ten each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the star in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the solar surface threaten infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to human life, yet they impact our planet by causing geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME are auroras, being direct evidence that charged particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the expert clarifies.

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

Historical Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm ever recorded was the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving millions without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, causing chaos across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• In February 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to see events in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at the source and watch its path, this serves as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the researcher.

In other words, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare to let researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data indicating the intensity a CME would be if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers worked together analyzing information gathered from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller and 21 kilotons respectively.

Although the numbers seem incredibly large, the scientist classifies it as a moderate event.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions carrying power matching greater levels.

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

"The insights from this will assist in work out protective measures to implement to protect spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.