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Regarding Aditya-L1, 2026 is expected to be like no other.

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit last year – will be able to watch the Sun during the peak of its solar cycle.

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

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves our star transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel in any direction, including towards our planet. At top speed, it would take 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 a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more each day."

Researching CMEs is one of the key research goals for the Indian first solar observatory. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to study the star at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, since events that take place on the Sun threaten infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to human life, yet they impact our planet by causing geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are a clear example that charged particles from our star journey to Earth," the expert explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, disable power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event in history was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted air traffic control, causing chaos in Sweden and various European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to see events in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to switch off power grids and satellites and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other solar missions observing our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it 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 functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it determine eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data indicating the intensity of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers collaborated to study information gathered from a major solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

Even though these figures seem massive, the expert describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock which wiped out prehistoric life on Earth carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions with energy content matching greater levels.

"In my view the CME we analyzed happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The insights from this will help us work out the countermeasures to be adopted to protect satellites in near space. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.