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

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

As per research, it comes approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It sees the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can head out in any direction, including towards the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions a day," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect there will be over ten daily."

Researching CMEs ranks among the most important scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections offer a chance to learn about the star at the centre of our solar system, and two, since events that take place on the Sun endanger systems on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to people, but they do affect life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, being direct evidence that solar particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the expert explains.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, knock down power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded was the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting six million people without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

If we are able to observe what happens on the Sun's corona and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to shut down power grids and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other solar missions observing our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering 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," notes the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – something the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining solar events in visible light, letting it measure eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data indicating how strong of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers worked together to study the data gathered from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons respectively.

Although these figures seem incredibly large, the scientist describes it as a moderate event.

The space rock which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions carrying power equal to even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The insights gained will assist in developing the countermeasures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.