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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed into space recently – will be able to observe the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to research, it comes roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees our star transition from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out in any direction, even toward our planet. At top speed, it would take a CME about half a day to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions daily," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect there will be over ten daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the key scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the star at the centre of our solar system, and two, because activities occurring on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs seldom present immediate danger to human life, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, which are a clear example that charged particles from our star journey to Earth," the expert explains.

"But they can also make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, causing disruption across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft failing

If we are able to see what happens on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at the source and track its path, it can work as advanced warning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other solar missions watching our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk permitting continuous observation of almost all of the corona around the clock, throughout the year, even during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare allowing scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study solar events using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure eruption heat and heat energy – key clues that show how strong of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's peak solar activity period, scientists collaborated to study the data gathered from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

Even though the numbers make it sound incredibly large, the expert classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on Earth carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs with energy content equal to even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard for future comparison assessing what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The insights gained will help us work out the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.