🔗 Share this article

For Aditya-L1, 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – which was placed in orbit recently – will be able to observe our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It involves our star changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take a CME about half a day to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun emits two to three CMEs a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated there will be 10 or more each day."

Researching CMEs is one of the key scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the solar surface threaten systems on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to human life, but they do affect our planet by causing magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are a clear example that charged particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

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

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving millions in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, leading to chaos in Sweden and some other European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to see events in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at the source and watch its path, this serves as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft and move them to safety.

The Mission's Special Capability

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

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, letting it measure eruption heat and thermal output – key clues that show the intensity a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists collaborated to study the data gathered from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons respectively.

Although these figures make it sound massive, the expert describes 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, we could see eruptions with energy content equal to even more than that.

"I consider the CME we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison assessing what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he says.

"The insights gained will assist in work out the countermeasures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.