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For Aditya-L1, the year 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the observatory – that entered in orbit recently – will be able to watch the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

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

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves our star transition from calm to stormy and features a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel in any direction, including towards the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun launches two to three CMEs daily," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be over ten daily."

Researching CMEs ranks among the key scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections offer a chance to learn about the star in the center of our solar system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to human life, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are a clear example that charged particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the expert explains.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded was the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting millions in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, causing chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to observe 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 trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and satellites and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare allowing scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it determine eruption heat and heat energy – key clues that show how strong a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists worked together to study information gathered from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

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

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs with energy content equal to even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated 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 learnings from this will assist in developing protective measures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.