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For Aditya-L1, the year 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the observatory – that entered into space recently – will be able to watch the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, it comes approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It involves our star transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel in any direction, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun launches two to three CMEs a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect them to be over ten each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the most important scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the star at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, since events occurring on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME are auroras, which are a clear example that solar particles from Sun journey to Earth," the expert explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event in history was the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to see events in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at the source and watch its path, it can work as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other solar missions observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 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 and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, even during solar events," notes the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, blocking the Sun's bright surface to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – something the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Additionally, it's unique that can study eruptions in visible light, enabling it to determine eruption heat and thermal output – key clues that show the intensity a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers worked together to study information gathered from a major CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale respectively.

Even though these figures make it sound massive, the expert describes it as a moderate event.

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions with energy content equal to even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed to have occurred during periods was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he states.

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