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

It's the first time the spacecraft – 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 polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It involves the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME can weigh of billions of tons and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take a CME 15 hours to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star launches a few solar eruptions daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated there will be over ten each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the key research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the star in the center of our planetary system, and two, since events that take place on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to human life, but they do affect life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, which are a clear example that charged particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the expert clarifies.

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, disable power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting millions without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, causing chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to observe what happens on the Sun's corona and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at the source and track its path, it can work as advanced warning to shut down power grids and satellites and move them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories watching our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge over others regarding watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the researcher.

In other words, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study eruptions in visible light, letting it determine eruption heat and heat energy – key clues that show how strong of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, scientists collaborated to study the data gathered from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

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

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs carrying power equal to greater levels.

"I consider the CME we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard for future comparison assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The insights from this will help us developing protective measures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in near space. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.