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

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – which was placed into space recently – will be able to watch our star when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

As per research, it comes approximately every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees our star changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out in any direction, including towards our planet. At top speed, it would take a CME 15 hours to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star emits two to three CMEs daily," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the key research goals of India's first solar observatory. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to study the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the solar surface threaten infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to human life, but they do affect life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions include northern lights, being direct evidence that solar particles from our star journey to Earth," the scientist explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, disable power grids and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar event ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving millions without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to observe events on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at origin and watch its path, it can work as a forewarning to shut down power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other solar missions observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others when it comes to watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size that lets it effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare allowing researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it measure eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data that show the intensity of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers worked together analyzing the data obtained from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

Even though the numbers seem massive, the scientist classifies it as a moderate event.

The asteroid that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions carrying power matching even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The learnings from this will assist in developing protective measures to implement safeguarding satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.