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Regarding Aditya-L1, the year 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – can watch our star during its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, this occurs approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees our star transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At top speed, it would take a CME about half a day to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star emits a few solar eruptions a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect them to be 10 or more each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the key research goals for the Indian first solar observatory. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the solar surface threaten systems on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to human life, but they do affect life on Earth through generating magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays of a CME are auroras, which are a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the expert explains.

"However, they may cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, disable electrical networks and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded was the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, leading to disruption in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to see events in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at origin and watch its path, this serves as a forewarning to shut down power grids and satellites and move them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories watching the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others when it comes to watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

Essentially, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated to study the data gathered from a major solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – 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 millions of tons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

Even though the numbers make it sound massive, the expert describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs carrying power matching even more than that.

"I consider the CME we analyzed happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he states.

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