🔗 Share this article

Regarding Aditya-L1, 2026 will be truly unique.

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – that entered into space recently – will be able to observe our star during its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, this occurs approximately every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It involves our star changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out toward various directions, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take a CME 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions a day," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect there will be 10 or more daily."

Studying CMEs is one of the key research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the Sun in the center of our solar system, and two, since events that take place on the solar surface endanger systems on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to people, yet they impact life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in near space, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, 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 scientist explains.

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

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting millions without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, causing chaos in Sweden and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at origin and track its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

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

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – something the real Moon provide only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique that can study solar events in visible light, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues that show how strong of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers worked together to study the data gathered from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, the heat reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons respectively.

Although the numbers seem massive, the expert classifies it as a moderate event.

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

"In my view this eruption we evaluated to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The learnings gained will assist in developing protective measures to implement safeguarding satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.