🔗 Share this article

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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered into space last year – will be able to watch our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs approximately every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It involves our star changing from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel in any direction, including towards our planet. At top speed, the journey takes a CME about half a day to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun launches two to three CMEs a day," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect them to be over ten daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the key research goals of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the star in the center of our solar system, and two, since events that take place on the Sun threaten infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to human life, but they do affect life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are direct evidence that charged particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the expert explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, disable power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving millions without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, causing disruption across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at origin and watch its path, this serves as a forewarning to switch off power grids and satellites redirecting them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories watching our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, 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 scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues that show how strong a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers collaborated to study the data gathered from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

Although these figures seem massive, the scientist classifies it as a moderate event.

The asteroid that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions carrying power matching even more than that.

"I consider the CME we analyzed happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard that we'll be using assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The insights gained will help us work out the countermeasures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.