🔗 Share this article

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

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – that entered in orbit last year – will be able to observe our star during its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs approximately every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun transition from calm to stormy and features a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel in any direction, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection about half a day to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star launches a few solar eruptions a day," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, it's anticipated there will be over ten each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the key scientific objectives of India's first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the Sun in the center of our solar system, and two, because activities that take place on the Sun threaten infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to human life, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in near space, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, which are direct evidence that solar particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the expert clarifies.

"But they can also make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, disable electrical networks and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event in history occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, leaving six million people without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to chaos in Sweden and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to observe events on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at origin and track its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories watching the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, enabling it to determine eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data that show the intensity a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, scientists worked together to study information gathered from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

Although the numbers seem incredibly large, the expert classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions with energy content equal to even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard for future comparison assessing what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The insights gained will assist in work out protective measures to be adopted to protect spacecraft in orbit. They will also help achieving a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.