🔗 Share this article

For Aditya-L1, the year 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed into space recently – will be able to observe our star during its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, it comes roughly every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the planet's poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees our star transition from calm to stormy and is marked by 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 of billions of tons and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out in any direction, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection about half a day to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"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."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the key research goals of India's first solar observatory. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the star in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, since events that take place on the Sun threaten infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to people, yet they impact our planet through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most spectacular manifestations of a CME are auroras, being a clear example that solar particles from Sun journey to Earth," the scientist explains.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, disable power grids and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event in history was the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting millions in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and various European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to observe events on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions watching the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to watching the corona.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

In other words, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare allowing scientists constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon provide only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique that can study eruptions in visible light, letting it measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data that show how strong of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers worked together analyzing information obtained from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

Even though these figures make it sound massive, the scientist describes it as a moderate event.

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions with energy content matching even more than that.

"In my view the CME we evaluated happened during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he says.

"The learnings gained will help us developing the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in near space. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.