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Regarding Aditya-L1, 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit recently – will be able to watch our star during its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, this occurs approximately every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves our star transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At top speed, it would take an ejection about half a day to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions a day," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated there will be over ten each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the key scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the star at the centre of our planetary system, and two, since events that take place on the solar surface threaten systems on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to people, but they do affect our planet by causing magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays of a CME are auroras, being a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving millions in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to observe events in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at origin and track its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to shut down power grids and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions observing the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others when it comes to watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, it's unique that can study eruptions in visible light, letting it measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues indicating the intensity of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, scientists worked together analyzing information obtained from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller and 21 kilotons respectively.

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

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions carrying power equal to even more than that.

"In my view the CME we evaluated happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The learnings gained will help us work out protective measures to be adopted to protect spacecraft in orbit. They will also help achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.