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Regarding Aditya-L1, the year 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered into space recently – will be able to watch our star when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

As per research, it comes approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent could be the planet's poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It involves the Sun transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh of billions of tons and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward our planet. At top speed, it would take an ejection about half a day to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun launches two to three CMEs a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect them to be over ten each day."

Researching CMEs is one of the key scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the star in the center of our solar system, and secondly, since events occurring on the Sun threaten infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to people, yet they impact life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays of a CME are auroras, being a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

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

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines 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 in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to observe what happens on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at origin and track its path, this serves as a forewarning to switch off power grids and satellites and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

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

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the solar disk permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, including during solar events," notes the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing scientists constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining eruptions in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – key clues indicating the intensity a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated to study the data obtained from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of explosives – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Even though the numbers seem incredibly large, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated 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 the CME we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The learnings gained will assist in work out protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.