🔗 Share this article

For Aditya-L1, 2026 will be truly unique.

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit last year – will be able to watch the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees the Sun transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out toward various directions, even toward our planet. At top speed, it would take a CME about half a day to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun launches two to three CMEs a day," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated there will be over ten daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the most important scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections offer a chance to study the star at the centre of our planetary system, and two, since events that take place on the Sun threaten systems on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to people, yet they impact our planet through generating magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays of a CME include northern lights, being a clear example that solar particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the expert clarifies.

"But they can also cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar event in history occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving millions in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, leading to disruption in Sweden and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to see events on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at the source and track its path, it can work as advanced warning to shut down power grids and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

There are other space observatories watching our star, India's spacecraft holds an edge compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it determine eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data indicating how strong a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers collaborated analyzing the data gathered from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

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

Even though the numbers seem massive, the expert describes it as a moderate event.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions with energy content matching even more than that.

"In my view the CME we evaluated happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The learnings gained will help us work out the countermeasures to implement safeguarding satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.