🔗 Share this article

For Aditya-L1, the year 2026 is expected to be like no other.

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered in orbit last year – can watch the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, this occurs approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It involves our star transition from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh of billions of tons and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel in any direction, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions daily," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect there will be 10 or more daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the Sun in the center of our solar system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the solar surface endanger systems on our planet and in space.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to people, yet they impact our planet through generating geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in near space, where nearly 11,000 satellites, including Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are a clear example that solar particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, disable power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting millions in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, causing chaos in Sweden and various European airports
• In February 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to observe what happens on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other space observatories watching the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of almost all of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare allowing researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining solar events in visible light, letting it determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues that show how strong of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated to study information obtained from a major CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

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

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs with energy content equal to greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated happened during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard for future comparison to evaluate what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The learnings from this will assist in work out protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.