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Regarding Aditya-L1, 2026 will be truly unique.

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – which was placed into space last year – will be able to watch our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It sees the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take a CME about half a day to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions a day," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect them to be 10 or more daily."

Researching CMEs ranks among the key research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, since events occurring on the solar surface threaten systems on Earth and in space.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present immediate danger to human life, yet they impact life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances that impact conditions in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME are auroras, which are a clear example that solar particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the expert explains.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event in history was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting millions in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to observe what happens on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at origin and watch its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to switch off power grids and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk permitting continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during solar events," notes the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare to let researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, letting it determine eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data that show how strong of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, researchers worked together to study information obtained from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass 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 was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

Although the numbers seem incredibly large, the expert describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs carrying power equal to even more than that.

"I consider the CME we evaluated to have occurred during periods was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The learnings gained will assist in developing protective measures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in near space. They will also help us gain a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.