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

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – that entered into space last year – can watch our star when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to research, this occurs roughly every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It involves the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out in any direction, even toward our planet. At top speed, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions daily," says a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect them to be over ten each day."

Researching CMEs is one of the most important scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the star in the center of our solar system, and two, because activities occurring on the Sun endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to people, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in near space, where nearly 11,000 satellites, including many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are direct evidence that charged particles from our star journey toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

"But they can also make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, disable electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event in history was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, affecting six million people without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, leading to chaos in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to see events in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at origin and track its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to shut down power grids and spacecraft redirecting them to safety.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk permitting continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during solar events," says the expert.

Essentially, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare allowing researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – something the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique that can study solar events in visible light, letting it determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – crucial data indicating how strong of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated to study information gathered from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons respectively.

Even though these figures seem incredibly large, the scientist classifies it as a moderate event.

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions carrying power matching greater levels.

"I consider the CME we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard for future comparison assessing what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The insights gained will assist in work out the countermeasures to implement to protect spacecraft in orbit. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.