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

It's the first time the observatory – that entered into space last year – will be able to watch the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

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

This period of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from calm to stormy and features a significant rise in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel in any direction, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take a CME 15 hours to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun launches two to three CMEs a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated there will be 10 or more each day."

Researching CMEs is one of the key research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections offer a chance to learn about the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, since events that take place on the solar surface threaten systems on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to people, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, being direct evidence that charged particles from our star journey to Earth," the scientist explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, knock down electrical networks and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid failed, affecting millions in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, causing disruption in Sweden and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

If we are able to observe events on the Sun's corona and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to shut down power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

The Mission's Special Capability

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

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the expert.

Essentially, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare to let scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it measure a CME's temperature and heat energy – crucial data that show how strong of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers collaborated analyzing information obtained from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller in scale each.

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

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions with energy content matching even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard for future comparison assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The learnings from this will help us developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding satellites in near space. They will also help us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.