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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 the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, this occurs approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves the Sun changing from calm to stormy and features a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel in any direction, even toward our planet. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun emits two to three CMEs daily," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect there will be 10 or more each day."

Studying CMEs ranks among the most important research goals for the Indian first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the star in the center of our solar system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to people, but they do affect our planet through generating geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are direct evidence that charged particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, disable electrical networks and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, leading to disruption in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft and move them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others regarding watching the corona.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the expert.

Essentially, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, blocking the Sun's bright surface to let researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining solar events in visible light, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues indicating the intensity a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists worked together analyzing information obtained from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

At origin, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale respectively.

Even though the numbers seem massive, the expert classifies it as a moderate event.

The asteroid that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs with energy content equal to greater levels.

"I consider the CME we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

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