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For Aditya-L1, 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered into space recently – will be able to watch the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

As per research, it comes roughly every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It sees the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take a CME about half a day to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun launches two to three CMEs a day," says a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect them to be 10 or more daily."

Researching CMEs is one of the key research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections offer a chance to study the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and two, since events that take place on the Sun threaten infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to people, yet they impact life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME include northern lights, which are a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, knock down electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded was the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving millions without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and various European airports
• In February 2022, a CME had led to dozens of spacecraft failing

If we are able to see what happens on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at origin and watch its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to shut down power grids and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other space observatories observing our star, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions in visible light, letting it determine eruption heat and thermal output – key clues that show how strong of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists collaborated analyzing information obtained from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale respectively.

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

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs carrying power equal to greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The learnings from this will assist in developing the countermeasures to be adopted to protect spacecraft in near space. They will also help achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.