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For Aditya-L1, 2026 will be like no other.

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – which was placed into space last year – can observe our star when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to research, this occurs approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It involves our star transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel in any direction, including towards the Earth. At top speed, it would take an ejection about half a day to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun launches two to three CMEs a day," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect there will be over ten daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the key scientific objectives of India's first solar observatory. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to learn about the star at the centre of our solar system, and two, since events occurring on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, but they do affect our planet by causing magnetic disturbances that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME are auroras, being direct evidence that solar particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the scientist explains.

"However, they may cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm in history occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving millions in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, leading to chaos in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at origin and track its path, this serves as advanced warning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

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

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, letting it measure a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues indicating how strong a CME would be if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, scientists collaborated analyzing the data obtained from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale each.

Although the numbers seem massive, the scientist classifies it as a moderate event.

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on Earth carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs with energy content matching greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated happened during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The insights from this will help us developing the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in orbit. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.