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Regarding Aditya-L1, the year 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit last year – can observe our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It involves the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized 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 travel toward various directions, even toward the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs a day," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be over ten daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and two, because activities occurring on the Sun endanger infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, yet they impact life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, including many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are direct evidence that charged particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the expert clarifies.

"But they can also make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, knock down power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm in history occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, causing chaos in Sweden and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

If we are able to see what happens on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at the source and watch its path, this serves as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft and move them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories watching our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage 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 solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, scientists worked together to study information obtained from a major CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

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

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs carrying power matching greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard for future comparison to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The learnings from this will help us developing the countermeasures to implement to protect satellites in orbit. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.