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For Aditya-L1, 2026 will be truly unique.

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – that entered into space recently – can observe the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to research, this occurs roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh of billions of tons and reach a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out toward various directions, even toward the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME about half a day to cover the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star emits a few solar eruptions a day," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect there will be over ten each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to study the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and two, because activities that take place on the Sun endanger infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to human life, but they do affect life on Earth through generating magnetic disturbances that impact conditions in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, being a clear example that solar particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the expert explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, knock down electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar event in history was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting millions without power for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, causing chaos across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at origin and watch its path, this serves as advanced warning to switch off power grids and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other solar missions observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of almost all of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, including during solar events," notes the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique that can study solar events in visible light, letting it measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data indicating how strong of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, scientists collaborated to study the data obtained from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

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

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs with energy content matching even more than that.

"I consider the CME we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The insights gained will help us developing protective measures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.