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For Aditya-L1, the year 2026 is expected to be like no other.

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered in orbit last year – will be able to watch the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, it comes approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out in any direction, including towards our planet. At top speed, it would take an ejection 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be over ten daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the most important research goals of India's first solar observatory. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the Sun in the center of our solar system, and secondly, since events occurring on the solar surface threaten systems on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to human life, yet they impact our planet by causing magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions are auroras, which are a clear example that solar particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the scientist explains.

"But they can also cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, knock down electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid failed, leaving millions without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, causing chaos in Sweden and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to observe events on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at origin and watch its path, it can work as advanced warning to switch off power grids and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions watching our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," notes the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, it's unique that can study solar events in visible light, letting it determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues indicating the intensity a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists collaborated analyzing information gathered from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale respectively.

Even though these figures make it sound incredibly large, the expert 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, there may be eruptions with energy content matching greater levels.

"I consider the CME we evaluated happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using assessing what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The learnings from this will assist in developing the countermeasures to implement to protect satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.