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

It's the first time the observatory – that entered into space recently – can watch our star during the peak of its solar cycle.

As per research, this occurs roughly every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It involves our star changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward our planet. At top speed, it would take an ejection about half a day to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star emits a few solar eruptions a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect them to be over ten daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the key research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections offer a chance to study the star in the center of our planetary system, and two, since events occurring on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to people, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most spectacular manifestations of a CME include northern lights, which are direct evidence that solar particles from our star journey toward our planet," the expert explains.

"But they can also cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, disable power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar event ever recorded was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving millions in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, causing disruption in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to see what happens on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at origin and track its path, this serves as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

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

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data that show the intensity of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers worked together to study information gathered from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

At origin, its temperature 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 15 kilotons in scale each.

Even though the numbers make it sound massive, the expert describes it as a moderate event.

The space rock which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs with energy content matching even more than that.

"I consider the CME we analyzed to have occurred during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The insights from this will help us developing the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.