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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – will be able to observe our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, this occurs approximately every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario could be the North and South poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of charged particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out in any direction, including towards the Earth. At top speed, it would take a CME about half a day to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star emits two to three CMEs a day," says a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect there will be 10 or more daily."

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

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to human life, yet they impact life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME include northern lights, being direct evidence that charged particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down electrical networks and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar event ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving millions in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at origin and watch its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

The Mission'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 is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine eruption heat and thermal output – key clues that show how strong of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated analyzing the data gathered from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

Although these figures make it sound massive, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions with energy content matching greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The learnings gained will help us developing the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.