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For Aditya-L1, 2026 is expected to be like no other.

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed into space last year – can watch the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, it comes approximately every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves our star transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star emits two to three CMEs a day," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect there will be over ten each day."

Researching CMEs is one of the most important scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the star at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, since events occurring on the solar surface endanger systems on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, but they do affect life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME include northern lights, which are direct evidence that solar particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the scientist explains.

"But they can also make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, disable electrical networks and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting millions without power for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at the source and watch its path, it can work as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

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

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

In other words, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study solar events using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues that show the intensity of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, scientists collaborated to study information gathered from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

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

The space rock which wiped out prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs carrying power matching even more than that.

"I consider the CME we evaluated to have occurred during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The learnings from this will help us work out the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of our space environment," he concludes.