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Regarding Aditya-L1, 2026 will be truly unique.

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – can observe the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, it comes roughly every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It sees our star changing from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

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 head out in any direction, including towards our planet. At top speed, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be over ten daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the star in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the solar surface threaten infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to human life, but they do affect our planet by causing geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions are auroras, which are direct evidence that solar particles from our star journey toward our planet," the expert explains.

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

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar event in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disrupted air traffic control, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at the source and watch its path, it can work as a forewarning to switch off power grids and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other space observatories watching our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, researchers worked together to study information gathered from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale each.

Even though these figures make it sound massive, the expert classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions carrying power matching even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard for future comparison assessing what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The learnings from this will assist in work out the countermeasures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.