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

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed in orbit last year – will be able to watch the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, this occurs approximately every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel in any direction, including towards our planet. At top speed, it would take a CME about half a day to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star emits a few solar eruptions a day," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, it's anticipated there will be 10 or more each day."

Studying CMEs ranks among the most important scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the star in the center of our planetary system, and two, since events that take place on the Sun threaten infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present immediate danger to people, yet they impact our planet by causing magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, orbit.

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

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar event in history was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting millions without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to see events on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at origin and track its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other solar missions observing our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, including during eclipses and occultations," says the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare to let researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – something the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study eruptions in visible light, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues indicating the intensity a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists worked together to study information gathered from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

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

At origin, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

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

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions with energy content matching greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark 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 implement safeguarding satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.