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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit last year – will be able to observe the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, it comes approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star launches a few solar eruptions daily," says a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated there will be over ten each day."

Researching CMEs is one of the key research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections offer a chance to study the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, since events that take place on the Sun endanger infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to human life, but they do affect life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, are stationed.

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

"But they can also make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, disable electrical networks and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar event in history occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving millions in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• In February 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

If we are able to see events in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at the source and track its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

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

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, including during eclipses and occultations," says the expert.

In other words, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data that show the intensity a CME would be if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, researchers worked together analyzing the data obtained 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 totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale each.

Although the numbers seem incredibly large, the scientist classifies it as a moderate event.

The asteroid that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs with energy content equal to greater levels.

"In my view the CME we evaluated happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says.

"The insights from this will help us work out protective measures to be adopted to protect spacecraft in near space. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.