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

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed into space recently – can observe the Sun during the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes roughly every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent could be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel in any direction, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take a CME about half a day to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated there will be over ten each day."

Researching CMEs ranks among the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections offer a chance to learn about the star in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the Sun threaten infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to human life, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in near space, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, being direct evidence that solar particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the expert explains.

"But they can also make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, knock down power grids and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting six million people without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, leading to disruption in Sweden and various European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to observe what happens on the Sun's corona and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at origin and track its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to switch off power grids and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

There are other solar missions observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic 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, including during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare to let scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, letting it determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – crucial data indicating how strong of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers collaborated analyzing information gathered from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

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

Even though the numbers make it sound massive, the expert classifies it as a moderate event.

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs with energy content matching greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated to have occurred during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard for future comparison to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says.

"The insights gained will help us work out protective measures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in near space. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.