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Regarding Aditya-L1, 2026 will be like no other.

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

According to research, this occurs approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees our star transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At top speed, it would take a CME about half a day to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect there will be over ten daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the most important research goals for the Indian first solar observatory. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the star at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, since events occurring on the Sun endanger systems on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to human life, but they do affect our planet by causing geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions include northern lights, being direct evidence that solar particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, disable electrical networks and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event in history was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving millions in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to chaos in Sweden and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at origin and track its path, this serves as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft redirecting them to safety.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other space observatories observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the solar disk permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, throughout the year, even during solar events," says the expert.

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

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it measure eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data that show how strong of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, scientists collaborated analyzing information obtained from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

Although these figures seem massive, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions carrying power matching even more than that.

"In my view the CME we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says.

"The learnings gained will assist in developing protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in near space. They will also help achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.