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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered in orbit last year – will be able to observe the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes roughly every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves the Sun changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out in any direction, even toward the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions daily," says a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect there will be over ten each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the key research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the star in the center of our solar system, and two, because activities occurring on the Sun endanger infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to people, yet they impact our planet by causing geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in near space, where nearly 11,000 satellites, including Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, being a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the scientist explains.

"But they can also cause electronic systems on a satellite malfunction, disable power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting six million people without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, causing chaos in Sweden and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at origin and track its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to shut down power grids and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions watching our star, India's spacecraft holds an edge compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare allowing researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique that can study solar events in visible light, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, researchers worked together analyzing information obtained from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to millions of tons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale each.

Even though these figures seem incredibly large, the expert classifies it as a moderate event.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions carrying power equal to greater levels.

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

"The insights gained will assist in developing protective measures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.