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

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit recently – can observe our star during its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, this occurs approximately 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 of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of charged particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can head out toward various directions, even toward the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take a CME about half a day to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun launches two to three CMEs daily," says a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect them to be over ten each day."

Researching CMEs is one of the key research goals for the Indian first solar observatory. One, because the ejections offer a chance to learn about the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the solar surface threaten systems on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to human life, yet they impact our planet through generating geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME are auroras, which are direct evidence that charged particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, disable power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving millions without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to disruption in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to observe events in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at the source and track its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to shut down power grids and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other space observatories watching our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," notes the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine eruption heat and heat energy – key clues that show the intensity of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, researchers worked together analyzing the data gathered from a major CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller in scale each.

Although these figures seem incredibly large, the scientist describes it as a moderate event.

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs carrying power equal to even more than that.

"In my view the CME we analyzed to have occurred during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison assessing what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The learnings gained will assist in developing the countermeasures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. They will also help us gain a better understanding of our space environment," he concludes.