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

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed into space last year – will be able to observe the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees the Sun transition from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up 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, including towards the Earth. At top speed, it would take a CME about half a day to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions daily," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the key research goals of India's first solar observatory. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the star in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, since events occurring on the solar surface threaten systems on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present immediate danger to human life, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, including many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays of a CME include northern lights, which are a clear example that charged particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the expert clarifies.

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

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid failed, affecting six million people without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, leading to disruption in Sweden and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to see 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 trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions observing our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others when it comes to watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare to let scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining eruptions in visible light, letting it determine eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data indicating how strong of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers collaborated to study information obtained from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated in 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 was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to millions of tons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

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

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs carrying power matching even more than that.

"In my view the CME we evaluated happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The learnings from this will help us developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in near space. They will also help us gain a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.