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

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – can watch our star during its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, it comes roughly every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves our star transition from calm to stormy and features a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out in any direction, even toward our planet. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star emits a few solar eruptions a day," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated there will be over ten daily."

Studying CMEs ranks among the key scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, since events occurring on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, but they do affect our planet through generating magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

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

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

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving millions in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, causing disruption across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft failing

If we are able to see events in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at origin and track its path, it can work as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

There are other space observatories observing the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona around the clock, throughout the year, including during solar events," notes the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining solar events in visible light, letting it measure eruption heat and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists worked together to study the data gathered from a major solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons respectively.

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

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions with energy content matching even more than that.

"In my view the CME we analyzed to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says.

"The learnings from this will help us developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.