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For India's first solar observatory, the year 2026 is expected to be like no other.

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – will be able to observe the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, it comes approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves our star transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of charged particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and reach a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel in any direction, even toward the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect there will be over ten daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important scientific objectives of India's first solar observatory. 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 Sun endanger systems on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, yet they impact our planet by causing geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions are auroras, which are a clear example that solar particles from Sun journey to Earth," the expert explains.

"However, they may cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, knock down power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event ever recorded was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, leaving millions in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to observe events on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at the source and track its path, this serves as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and satellites redirecting them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories watching our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals when it comes to watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona around the clock, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

In other words, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data that show the intensity 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 solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale each.

Although the numbers seem incredibly large, the expert describes it as a moderate event.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions with energy content matching even more than that.

"I consider the CME we evaluated happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using assessing what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The learnings from this will assist in work out the countermeasures to implement to protect satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.