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Regarding Aditya-L1, 2026 is expected to be like no other.

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed in orbit recently – can watch our star during the peak of its solar cycle.

As per scientific data, this occurs roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time 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 plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up 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 toward various directions, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star emits two to three CMEs a day," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more each day."

Researching CMEs is one of the key research goals for the Indian first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, since events occurring on the solar surface endanger systems on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, yet they impact life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

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

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, disable power grids and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and various European airports
• In February 2022, a CME had led to dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to see events in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at the source and track its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories observing the Sun, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others when it comes to watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the solar disk permitting continuous observation of almost all of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining eruptions in visible light, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, scientists collaborated to study the data obtained from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

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

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions carrying power equal to greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison assessing what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he says.

"The insights gained will help us developing protective measures to implement to protect spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.