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Regarding India's first solar observatory, the year 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered in orbit last year – can observe the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, it comes roughly every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward the Earth. At top speed, it would take an ejection 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star emits two to three CMEs daily," says a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect them to be 10 or more each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the most important scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the solar surface endanger systems on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present immediate danger to human life, yet they impact life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations of a CME include northern lights, which are direct evidence that charged particles from our star journey toward our planet," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite fail, knock down power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar event ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting millions without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, causing chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports
• In February 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

If we are able to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its path, this serves as advanced warning to switch off power grids and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other space observatories observing the Sun, India's spacecraft holds an edge compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"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, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare allowing researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon provide only during eclipses.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – crucial data that show the intensity of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, scientists collaborated analyzing information gathered from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale each.

Although the numbers make it sound massive, the scientist describes it as a moderate event.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs carrying power matching greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison assessing what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The learnings gained will assist in developing the countermeasures to implement to protect satellites in orbit. They will also help us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.