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For Aditya-L1, the year 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit last year – can observe our star during its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It involves the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take a CME 15 hours to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions daily," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect there will be 10 or more each day."

Studying CMEs is one of the key research goals of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the star in the center of our planetary system, and two, since events that take place on the solar surface threaten infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to people, yet they impact life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME are auroras, which are a clear example that solar particles from Sun journey to Earth," the expert clarifies.

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

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar event in history was the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting millions in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to observe events in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at origin and watch its path, it can work as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories watching the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, even during solar events," notes the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, blocking the Sun's bright surface to let researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine eruption heat and thermal output – key clues that show the intensity a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated to study information obtained from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale each.

Although these figures make it sound incredibly large, the expert classifies it as a moderate event.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions with energy content matching even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we analyzed happened during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The insights from this will assist in work out protective measures to implement to protect satellites in orbit. They will also help achieving a better understanding of our space environment," he concludes.