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Regarding Aditya-L1, 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

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

As per scientific data, this occurs roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the planet's poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It sees the Sun transition from calm to stormy and features a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and reach velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection 15 hours to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions a day," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect them to be 10 or more daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the most important scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, since events that take place on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to human life, but they do affect life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances that impact conditions in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are a clear example that solar particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

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

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event in history was the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving six million people without power for hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, causing chaos across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to observe events on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at the source and track its path, this serves as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft and move them to safety.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other space observatories watching our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, enabling it to determine eruption heat and thermal output – key clues that show the intensity of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated to study information gathered from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller in scale each.

Even though these figures make it sound massive, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, 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. This establishes the standard that we'll be using assessing what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he says.

"The learnings from this will help us developing the countermeasures to be adopted to protect satellites in near space. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.