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

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – which was placed into space recently – will be able to watch our star during the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It involves the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and reach a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward the Earth. At top speed, it would take an ejection 15 hours to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions a day," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important scientific objectives of India's first solar observatory. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the star in the center of our solar system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the Sun threaten systems on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to human life, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME include northern lights, being direct evidence that charged particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the expert explains.

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

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, leaving six million people in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, causing chaos across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at origin and watch its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other space observatories observing our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining solar events in visible light, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – crucial data that show how strong a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated to study 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 was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

Even though the numbers seem incredibly large, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions with energy content matching greater levels.

"I consider the CME we analyzed to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard for future comparison to evaluate what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The learnings from this will assist in developing protective measures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.