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

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered into space last year – can watch our star when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

As per scientific data, it comes roughly every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves our star transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh of billions of tons and reach a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel in any direction, including towards 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 low-activity times, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions a day," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated there will be over ten daily."

Researching CMEs is one of the most important scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the Sun endanger systems on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to human life, but they do affect our planet through generating magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME include northern lights, being a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the expert explains.

"But they can also make all the electronics on a satellite fail, knock down power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, leading to chaos in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to observe events on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at the source and watch its path, it can work as a forewarning to switch off power grids and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories watching the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing scientists constantly study its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, 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 of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, scientists collaborated analyzing information gathered from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

Although these figures make it sound massive, the scientist classifies it as a moderate event.

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions with energy content equal to even more than that.

"In my view the CME we analyzed happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard for future comparison assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The learnings gained will help us developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.