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

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – which was placed in orbit recently – can observe the Sun during the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel in any direction, including towards our planet. At top speed, the journey takes 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 emits a few solar eruptions daily," says a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the key research goals for the Indian first solar observatory. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the star at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, since events that take place on the Sun threaten systems on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to human life, yet they impact life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME are auroras, being direct evidence that charged particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"But they can also make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, knock down power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar event in history was the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting six million people without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, causing disruption across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to observe events in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at the source and watch its path, it can work as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

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

"The instrument is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare to let researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data that show how strong a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers worked together analyzing information gathered from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. 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 millions of tons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

Even though the numbers make it sound massive, the expert classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions with energy content matching greater levels.

"I consider the CME we evaluated happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The learnings from this will help us work out protective measures to implement safeguarding satellites in orbit. They will also help achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.