🔗 Share this article

Regarding Aditya-L1, the year 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – will be able to watch our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, it comes approximately every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the North and South poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt 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 velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel in any direction, even toward the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun launches two to three CMEs a day," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect there will be 10 or more each day."

Researching CMEs is one of the key research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the star in the center of our planetary system, and two, since events that take place on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, but they do affect life on Earth through generating magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, which are direct evidence that solar particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the scientist explains.

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

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm in history was the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting millions in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, causing disruption in Sweden and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to see events in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at origin and track its path, this serves as a forewarning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others when it comes to watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of almost all of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

In other words, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Additionally, it's unique that can study solar events in visible light, enabling it to determine eruption heat and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, scientists worked together analyzing the data obtained from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

Even though the numbers make it sound massive, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs carrying power matching greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The learnings from this will assist in developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.