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

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit recently – can observe the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to research, it comes approximately every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh of billions of tons and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out toward various directions, even toward the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions daily," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect there will be 10 or more daily."

Researching CMEs ranks among the key scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the star in the center of our solar system, and secondly, since events that take place on the Sun endanger systems on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

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

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, being a clear example that solar particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the expert explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, disable power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

If we are able to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at the source and track its path, this serves as a forewarning to shut down power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during solar events," notes the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, blocking the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, letting it measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data that show the intensity a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, scientists worked together to study information gathered from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content comparable to millions of tons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

Although these figures make it sound incredibly large, the expert describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs with energy content matching even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The learnings gained will help us work out protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.