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

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered into space last year – will be able to observe the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, it comes roughly every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It involves our star transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME can weigh 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 our planet. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star emits two to three CMEs daily," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect them to be over ten daily."

Researching CMEs is one of the most important research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections offer a chance to study the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the solar surface threaten infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to human life, yet they impact our planet through generating magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, being a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the expert explains.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting six million people in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, leading to chaos in Sweden and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to see what happens on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at origin and track its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories observing our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during solar events," notes the researcher.

In other words, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

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

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, scientists worked together to study information obtained from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons respectively.

Even though the numbers make it sound incredibly large, the expert describes it as a moderate event.

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions carrying power matching even more than that.

"In my view the CME we evaluated happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The insights from this will assist in developing the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.