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For India's first solar observatory, 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed into space last year – will be able to watch the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, this occurs approximately every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the planet's poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can head out in any direction, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to cover the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star launches a few solar eruptions daily," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect them to be over ten daily."

Studying CMEs ranks among the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and two, because activities that take place on the solar surface threaten systems on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to human life, but they do affect our planet through generating magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME are auroras, which are direct evidence that solar particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the expert explains.

"But they can also make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down electrical networks and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid failed, affecting six million people in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, causing chaos across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its path, this serves as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft redirecting them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories observing our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk permitting continuous observation of almost all of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare to let scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – key clues that show how strong of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated to study the data obtained from a major 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 – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

Even though these figures make it sound incredibly large, the expert describes it as a moderate event.

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs with energy content matching even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard for future comparison assessing what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The insights gained will assist in developing the countermeasures to be adopted to protect spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.