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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed into space last year – can watch the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, this occurs approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It involves 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 plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh of billions of tons and reach a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun launches two to three CMEs a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated there will be over ten daily."

Studying CMEs is one of the most important scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections offer a chance to study the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and two, since events that take place on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to human life, yet they impact our planet through generating geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, being a clear example that solar particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, disable power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event ever recorded was the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft failing

If we are able to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft and move them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

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

"The instrument is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, including during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare to let researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, letting it determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues that show the intensity of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers worked together to study the data obtained from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic weighed much less.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content comparable to millions of tons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

Although these figures make it sound massive, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs carrying power matching even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he says.

"The learnings gained will help us developing protective measures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.