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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – will be able to observe the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

As per scientific data, this occurs approximately every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," says a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be over ten daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the key scientific objectives of India's first solar observatory. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the Sun endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to people, but they do affect our planet through generating magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions are auroras, which are direct evidence that solar particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite fail, knock down electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, causing chaos across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to see events in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at origin and track its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other space observatories observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, including during solar events," notes the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining eruptions in visible light, letting it determine eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data that show how strong a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated analyzing the data gathered from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – 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 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale each.

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

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs carrying power matching greater levels.

"In my view the CME we evaluated to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison assessing what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he says.

"The insights from this will assist in work out the countermeasures to implement safeguarding satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.