🔗 Share this article

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

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – that entered into space last year – can watch the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

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

It's a time marked by intense activity. 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 blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME can weigh of billions of tons and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out in any direction, even toward our planet. At top speed, it would take a CME 15 hours to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions daily," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated there will be over ten each day."

Studying CMEs is one of the most important scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the Sun in the center of our solar system, and two, because activities occurring on the solar surface threaten systems on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

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

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, being a clear example that charged particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, knock down electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar event ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, causing chaos across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to observe events on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at the source and track its path, it can work as advanced warning to shut down power grids and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," notes the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare allowing scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique that can study solar events using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, researchers worked together analyzing the data gathered from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began in 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 was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

Even though the numbers make it sound massive, the expert describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs carrying power matching greater levels.

"In my view the CME we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The insights gained will help us developing the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.