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For Aditya-L1, 2026 is expected to be like no other.

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

As per scientific data, it comes approximately every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel in any direction, even toward the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes a CME about half a day to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star emits a few solar eruptions daily," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect there will be 10 or more each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the key scientific objectives of India's first solar observatory. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the star at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, since events occurring on the Sun threaten infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to human life, but they do affect life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations of a CME include northern lights, which are a clear example that solar particles from Sun journey to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"But they can also cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, disable power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving millions in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, 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 what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and satellites and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others regarding watching the corona.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare to let researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining solar events in visible light, letting it determine eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data that show how strong a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, scientists worked together to study the data obtained from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated in September 2024 during early hours. 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 TNT – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

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

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs with energy content matching greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The learnings from this will help us work out the countermeasures to implement to protect satellites in near space. They will also help us gain a better understanding of our space environment," he concludes.