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

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed in orbit recently – can observe our star during its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, it comes approximately every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees our star transition from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can head out in any direction, even toward the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection about half a day to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star launches two to three CMEs a day," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be over ten daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the most important research goals of India's first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the Sun in the center of our solar system, and secondly, since events that take place on the Sun endanger systems on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to human life, but they do affect our planet by causing magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations of a CME are auroras, which are a clear example that solar particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"But they can also cause electronic systems on a satellite malfunction, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, causing chaos in Sweden and some other European airports
• In February 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to see events on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at origin and track its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions watching the Sun, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during solar events," notes the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study eruptions in visible light, enabling it to determine eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data that show how strong of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, scientists worked together to study the data obtained from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic weighed much less.

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 each.

Even though these figures make it sound massive, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs with energy content equal to greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard for future comparison assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says.

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