🔗 Share this article

Regarding Aditya-L1, 2026 is expected to be like no other.

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – that entered in orbit recently – can watch our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, it comes approximately every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It involves our star changing from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel in any direction, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME about half a day to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun emits two to three CMEs a day," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect them to be over ten each day."

Studying CMEs ranks among the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the star at the centre of our planetary system, and two, since events occurring on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to people, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are direct evidence that charged particles from our star journey to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

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

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event in history was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting millions in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, causing chaos in Sweden and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at the source and watch its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

There are other solar missions observing our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to watching the corona.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon provide only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining solar events in visible light, letting it measure a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues indicating the intensity a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, researchers collaborated to study information gathered from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Even though the numbers 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 the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs carrying power matching even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated happened during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The learnings from this will help us developing protective measures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in near space. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.