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

It's the first time the observatory – that entered in orbit last year – 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 – the Earth equivalent could be the planet's poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves the Sun transition from calm to stormy and features a significant rise in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out in any direction, including towards our planet. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions a day," says a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect there will be over ten daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and two, because activities occurring on the Sun endanger infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to human life, yet they impact our planet through generating magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations of a CME include northern lights, which are direct evidence that charged particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down electrical networks and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar event in history was the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving millions in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, causing chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to see what happens on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at origin and track its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and satellites and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare to let researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique that can study solar events in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data indicating how strong of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, scientists collaborated analyzing the data gathered from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale each.

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

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs carrying power equal to even more than that.

"In my view the CME we evaluated happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The learnings gained will assist in work out the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.