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For Aditya-L1, the year 2026 is expected to be like no other.

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

As per research, this occurs roughly every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the North and South poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It involves the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star emits two to three CMEs daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect there will be over ten daily."

Researching CMEs is one of the most important research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun in the center of our solar system, and two, because activities occurring on the Sun endanger systems on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, which are a clear example that solar particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the expert explains.

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

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm in history occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid failed, leaving millions in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft failing

If we are able to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to switch off power grids and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

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

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, even during solar events," notes the researcher.

In other words, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare allowing researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study solar events in visible light, letting it measure eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data that show how strong a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated analyzing the data gathered from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

At origin, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

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

The asteroid that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs carrying power equal to even more than that.

"In my view the CME we analyzed happened during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The learnings gained will assist in developing protective measures to be adopted to protect spacecraft in near space. They will also help achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.