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For India's first solar observatory, the year 2026 will be truly unique.

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

As per research, this occurs roughly 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 involves our star transition from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of charged particles, a CME can weigh of billions of tons and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to cover the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun emits two to three CMEs a day," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect them to be 10 or more each day."

Researching CMEs ranks among the key research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and two, because activities that take place on the Sun threaten infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to human life, yet they impact our planet through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most spectacular displays of a CME are auroras, which are direct evidence that charged particles from our star journey to Earth," the expert explains.

"However, they may cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, disable power grids and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving millions in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, causing disruption across Scandinavia and various European airports
• In February 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to observe events in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at origin and watch its path, this serves as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft redirecting them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other solar missions observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during solar events," notes the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists constantly study its faint outer corona – something the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining 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 the upcoming solar maximum, researchers collaborated analyzing the data gathered from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Even though these figures seem incredibly large, the expert describes it as a moderate event.

The space rock which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions with energy content matching even more than that.

"I consider the CME we analyzed to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The insights from this will help us work out the countermeasures to implement to protect spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.