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For 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 watch the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to research, it comes roughly every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles swapping positions.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees our star transition from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a CME can weigh of billions of tons and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel in any direction, even toward our planet. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star launches a few solar eruptions a day," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect there will be 10 or more each day."

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

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to people, yet they impact life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in near space, where nearly 11,000 satellites, including Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, being direct evidence that solar particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the scientist explains.

"But they can also make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, disable power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting millions without power for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft failing

If we are able to see what happens on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at the source and watch its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to shut down power grids and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other space observatories watching the Sun, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – something the real Moon provide only during eclipses.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions in visible light, enabling it to determine eruption heat and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong a CME would be if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, scientists worked together analyzing information obtained from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons respectively.

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

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions with energy content matching greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he says.

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