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Regarding Aditya-L1, the year 2026 is expected to be like no other.

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – can observe our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, this occurs approximately every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It sees our star changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh of billions of tons and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel in any direction, even toward the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun launches two to three CMEs a day," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect them to be 10 or more each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the most important scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, since events occurring on the Sun threaten systems on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to human life, yet they impact our planet by causing magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations of a CME are auroras, which are direct evidence that charged particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, knock down power grids and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving six million people in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, leading to chaos in Sweden and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to observe events in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at origin and track its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other solar missions observing our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique that can study solar events in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and heat energy – key clues indicating how strong of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, scientists collaborated to study the data gathered from a major solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

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

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions with energy content matching even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The insights from this will help us developing protective measures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in near space. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.