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

It's the first time the observatory – that entered into space recently – can observe the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It involves our star changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection about half a day to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun launches two to three CMEs a day," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated there will be over ten each day."

Researching CMEs ranks among the most important research goals of India's first solar observatory. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to learn about the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and two, since events that take place on the Sun threaten infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to people, yet they impact life on Earth through generating magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME are auroras, which are direct evidence that charged particles from Sun journey to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, disable electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar event in history occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at origin and watch its path, it can work as a forewarning to shut down power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions watching our star, India's spacecraft holds an edge compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona around the clock, throughout the year, including during solar events," notes the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare to let researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – something the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, enabling it to determine eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data indicating how strong of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, scientists worked together to study information obtained from a major CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to millions of tons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

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

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions carrying power matching greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The learnings from this will help us developing the countermeasures to implement to protect spacecraft in orbit. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.