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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit recently – will be able to watch the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, it comes roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh of billions of tons and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star emits two to three CMEs daily," says a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect them to be over ten daily."

Studying CMEs ranks among the most important scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the Sun in the center of our solar system, and two, because activities that take place on the Sun endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to human life, but they do affect life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances that impact conditions in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME are auroras, being a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the scientist explains.

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

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm ever recorded was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting millions without power for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, causing chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to shut down power grids and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

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

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," notes the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues that show how strong of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

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

This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

Although these figures seem incredibly large, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs with energy content matching greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The insights from this will help us developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.