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For Aditya-L1, 2026 will be truly unique.

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

According to scientific data, it comes approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It involves our star transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a CME can weigh of billions of tons and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions a day," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect there will be over ten each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, since events that take place on the solar surface threaten systems on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to human life, yet they impact life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME include northern lights, which are a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the scientist explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite fail, knock down electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar event ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting millions in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, causing disruption in Sweden and some other European airports
• In February 2022, a CME had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to observe events on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at origin and track its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other solar missions watching our star, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others regarding watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the expert.

Essentially, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare to let scientists constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data that show how strong of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, scientists worked together analyzing information gathered from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

Although the numbers make it sound incredibly large, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs with energy content equal to greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

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