🔗 Share this article

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

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

According to research, it comes roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves the Sun transition from calm to stormy and features a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel in any direction, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take a CME about half a day to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated there will be over ten each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the key scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, since events occurring on the Sun threaten systems on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to human life, but they do affect life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most spectacular manifestations of a CME include northern lights, which are a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

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

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm in history occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting six million people in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to observe events in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at the source and track its path, it can work as a forewarning to shut down power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other space observatories observing our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size that lets it effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the expert.

Essentially, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare allowing researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – something the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine eruption heat and heat energy – key clues that show how strong of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated to study information gathered from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Even though these figures seem incredibly large, the scientist classifies it as a moderate event.

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on Earth carried enormous energy and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs with energy content equal to greater levels.

"I consider the CME we evaluated happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard for future comparison to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The learnings from this will assist in work out the countermeasures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.