🔗 Share this article

Regarding Aditya-L1, the year 2026 will be like no other.

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered in orbit last year – can observe the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It involves the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel in any direction, even toward the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated there will be over ten each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the key scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and two, since events occurring on the solar surface endanger systems on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to human life, yet they impact life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, including many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays from solar eruptions are auroras, which are direct evidence that charged particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, disable electrical networks and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm in history was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting six million people in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, causing chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at origin and watch its path, this serves as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories watching our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, even during solar events," notes the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare allowing researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Additionally, it's unique that can study eruptions in visible light, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data that show the intensity a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, scientists collaborated to study information obtained from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic weighed much less.

At origin, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

Although these figures seem massive, the expert classifies it as a moderate event.

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs carrying power equal to even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The insights gained will help us work out the countermeasures to implement safeguarding satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.