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For Aditya-L1, 2026 will be like no other.

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed in orbit recently – can observe the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

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

This period marked by intense activity. It sees 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 fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh of billions of tons and reach a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out in any direction, even toward the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star launches two to three CMEs a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, since events that take place on the Sun endanger infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs seldom present immediate danger to people, yet they impact our planet by causing magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, being a clear example that charged particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the scientist explains.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, disable power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving six million people without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, leading to chaos in Sweden and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to observe events in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at the source and track its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to shut down power grids and satellites and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data indicating the intensity of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

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

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale respectively.

Even though these figures make it sound massive, the expert describes it as a moderate event.

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions carrying power matching greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The learnings from this will assist in work out protective measures to implement to protect satellites in orbit. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.