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For Aditya-L1, 2026 will be like no other.

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered into space recently – will be able to watch the Sun during the peak of its solar cycle.

As per research, it comes approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees our star changing from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of plasma that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star launches two to three CMEs a day," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect there will be over ten daily."

Studying CMEs ranks among the most important scientific objectives of India's first solar observatory. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the star at the centre of our solar system, and two, since events occurring on the Sun endanger systems on our planet and in space.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to human life, but they do affect our planet by causing magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in near space, where nearly 11,000 satellites, including many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays of a CME are auroras, which are direct evidence that charged particles from our star journey to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"But they can also make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid failed, leaving millions in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, causing chaos in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to see events in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other space observatories observing our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," says the expert.

In other words, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it measure a CME's temperature and heat energy – crucial data indicating the intensity a CME would be if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists worked together analyzing the data gathered from one of the largest solar eruption 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 sank Titanic weighed much less.

At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller and 21 kilotons respectively.

Although these figures seem massive, the expert describes it as a moderate event.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs carrying power matching even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed happened during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The learnings gained will help us developing the countermeasures to be adopted to protect spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of our space environment," he concludes.