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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – can 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 – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees our star changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel in any direction, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," says a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be over ten each day."

Studying CMEs is one of the most important scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the star at the centre of our planetary system, and two, since events occurring on the Sun threaten infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to people, but they do affect our planet by causing magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations of a CME are auroras, being a clear example that solar particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the expert explains.

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, disable power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, leaving six million people without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, causing disruption across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME had led to dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to observe events in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at the source and track its path, this serves as advanced warning to shut down power grids and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other solar missions watching our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge over others regarding watching the corona.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during solar events," notes the expert.

Essentially, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare to let scientists constantly study its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study eruptions in visible light, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data that show the intensity a CME would be if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers worked together to study information gathered from a major solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale respectively.

Even though the numbers seem massive, the scientist classifies it as a moderate event.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs with energy content matching even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard for future comparison assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The insights from this will help us work out protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in near space. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.