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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered in orbit last year – can watch our star during the peak of its solar cycle.

According to research, this occurs approximately every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It involves our star transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh of billions of tons and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions a day," says a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated there will be over ten each day."

Researching CMEs ranks among the key scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the star in the center of our planetary system, and two, since events that take place on the Sun threaten infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to human life, but they do affect our planet by causing geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions are auroras, being a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, knock down electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event in history was the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting six million people in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, leading to chaos in Sweden and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to see what happens on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at origin and track its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and satellites and move them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others regarding watching the corona.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

In other words, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare to let scientists constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions in visible light, letting it measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues indicating the intensity of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, scientists worked together analyzing information gathered from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

At origin, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale respectively.

Although these figures seem massive, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions with energy content matching even more than that.

"In my view the CME we analyzed to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard for future comparison assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says.

"The learnings from this will help us developing the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in near space. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.