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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit last year – will be able to watch our star during its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, this occurs approximately every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from calm to stormy and features a significant rise in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards our planet. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun emits two to three CMEs daily," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the most important research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the star at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, since events occurring on the solar surface endanger systems on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to people, but they do affect our planet through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, which are direct evidence that solar particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, disable power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, leaving millions without power for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, causing chaos in Sweden and various European air hubs
• In February 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 as it happens, record its temperature at the source and track its path, it can work as a forewarning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge over others when it comes to watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, even during solar events," notes the researcher.

In other words, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, blocking the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study eruptions in visible light, letting it measure eruption heat and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists worked together analyzing information gathered from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller and 21 kilotons respectively.

Even though the numbers seem incredibly large, the expert classifies it as a moderate event.

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs carrying power equal to even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated happened during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard for future comparison to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The learnings from this will assist in work out protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.