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Regarding Aditya-L1, 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – can watch our star during its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, this occurs roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves the Sun transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out in any direction, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun emits two to three CMEs a day," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated there will be 10 or more each day."

Researching CMEs ranks among the most important scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to learn about the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the Sun endanger infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to human life, yet they impact life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations of a CME are auroras, being direct evidence that solar particles from our star journey toward our planet," the scientist explains.

"However, they may cause electronic systems on a satellite malfunction, knock down power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving millions without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at the source and track its path, it can work as a forewarning to shut down power grids and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions watching the Sun, India's spacecraft holds an edge compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, including during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare to let researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, letting it determine eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data indicating the intensity of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for next year's peak solar activity period, scientists collaborated analyzing the data obtained from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

Even though these figures seem massive, the scientist describes it as a moderate event.

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs carrying power equal to greater levels.

"I consider the CME we evaluated happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The learnings gained will help us work out protective measures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.