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For Aditya-L1, 2026 is expected to be like no other.

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered into space last year – can watch our star during its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, this occurs approximately every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario could be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees our star transition from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh of billions of tons and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel in any direction, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection 15 hours to cover the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun launches two to three CMEs daily," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more each day."

Researching CMEs is one of the key research goals of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to learn about the Sun in the center of our solar system, and two, because activities that take place on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to people, yet they impact life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, orbit.

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

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, disable electrical networks and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event in history occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people without power for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disrupted air traffic control, causing chaos across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to see events in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to shut down power grids and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories watching our star, India's spacecraft holds an edge compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, even during solar events," says the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data that show the intensity of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers worked together analyzing the data obtained from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale each.

Although these figures seem massive, the scientist describes it as a moderate event.

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions carrying power matching greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated happened during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The insights gained will help us work out protective measures to implement safeguarding satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.