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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – can watch the Sun during the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent could be the planet's poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward our planet. At top speed, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated there will be over ten each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the key scientific objectives of India's first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the star at the centre of our planetary system, and two, since events occurring on the Sun endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, yet they impact our planet by causing magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

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

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event in history was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting millions in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, causing chaos in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to shut down power grids and satellites and move them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories observing our star, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface to let scientists constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data indicating how strong a CME would be if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, scientists collaborated analyzing information obtained from a major CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale each.

Although these figures make it sound massive, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs carrying power equal to even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated 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 arrives," he states.

"The learnings gained will assist in developing protective measures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.