🔗 Share this article

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

It's the first time the observatory – that entered in orbit recently – can watch our star during the peak of its solar cycle.

According to research, this occurs approximately 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 the Sun transition 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 fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out in any direction, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME about half a day to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be over ten each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the key scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the Sun endanger infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to human life, but they do affect our planet through generating geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays from solar eruptions are auroras, being a clear example that solar particles from our star journey toward our planet," the expert clarifies.

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

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar event in history was the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting millions in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to see what happens on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at origin and watch its path, it can work as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and satellites redirecting them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions observing our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, even during solar events," notes the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – something the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, letting it measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data indicating how strong of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, scientists collaborated analyzing information obtained from one of the largest 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 was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale each.

Even though these figures make it sound incredibly large, the expert describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions carrying power equal to greater levels.

"I consider the CME we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The insights gained will help us developing protective measures to be adopted to protect spacecraft in orbit. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.