🔗 Share this article

For Aditya-L1, the year 2026 will be truly unique.

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

As per scientific data, this occurs roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees our star changing from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection 15 hours to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star emits a few solar eruptions daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be over ten each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the key scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the star at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, since events occurring on the Sun endanger infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to people, yet they impact our planet through generating geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, which are a clear example that charged particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the expert clarifies.

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, disable electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting six million people in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, causing chaos in Sweden and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at origin and track its path, it can work as a forewarning to switch off power grids and spacecraft redirecting them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions observing our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument is the exact size that lets it effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions in visible light, letting it measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data indicating the intensity of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers worked together to study the data gathered from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began 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, the heat reached extreme levels and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

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

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs with energy content matching even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we analyzed happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard for future comparison assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The learnings gained will help us work out the countermeasures to implement safeguarding satellites in near space. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.