🔗 Share this article

For Aditya-L1, the year 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – that entered into space recently – will be able to observe our star during the peak of its solar cycle.

According to research, this occurs roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It involves the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a CME can weigh of billions of tons and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star emits a few solar eruptions daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more each day."

Researching CMEs is one of the key research goals for the Indian first solar observatory. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the Sun threaten infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to human life, yet they impact life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in near space, where nearly 11,000 satellites, including Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, being direct evidence that solar particles from Sun journey to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems on a satellite malfunction, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting millions without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, leading to chaos in Sweden and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at origin and watch its path, this serves as a forewarning to shut down power grids and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other solar missions watching the Sun, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

In other words, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining eruptions in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – key clues that show how strong a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, scientists worked together analyzing information gathered from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

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

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

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs with energy content matching greater levels.

"I consider the CME we evaluated happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The insights gained will help us work out the countermeasures to be adopted to protect spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.