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

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – that entered in orbit last year – will be able to watch the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to research, it comes approximately every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It sees our star transition from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of charged particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out in any direction, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection about half a day to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star launches a few solar eruptions daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect them to be 10 or more daily."

Researching CMEs ranks among the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the star at the centre of our planetary system, and two, because activities occurring on the Sun endanger infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, yet they impact life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, including Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations of a CME are auroras, which are a clear example that solar particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded was the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, leading to chaos in Sweden and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to see events on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at origin and watch its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to switch off power grids and satellites and move them to safety.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other solar missions observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others when it comes to watching the corona.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study eruptions in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and heat energy – key clues indicating how strong a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers worked together analyzing the data obtained from a major CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

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

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller in scale each.

Although the numbers seem incredibly large, the expert describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs carrying power matching even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The insights from this will assist in developing the countermeasures to implement to protect satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.