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

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – which was placed in orbit recently – can observe the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to research, it comes roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to cover the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be over ten each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the key research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, since events occurring on the solar surface endanger systems on our planet and in space.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to human life, but they do affect life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions include northern lights, being direct evidence that solar particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the expert clarifies.

"But they can also make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar event ever recorded was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, leading to chaos in Sweden and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to observe events in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at the source and track its path, this serves as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

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

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk permitting continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, including during eclipses and occultations," says the expert.

Essentially, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let scientists constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study eruptions in visible light, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues that show how strong of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists worked together analyzing information obtained from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

Although these figures seem massive, the expert classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions carrying power matching even more than that.

"In my view the CME we evaluated happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using assessing what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The learnings from this will help us developing protective measures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.