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Regarding 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 – can watch our star during its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes roughly every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent could be the planet's poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It involves the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out in any direction, even toward the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions a day," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, it's anticipated there will be 10 or more each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and two, because activities occurring on the Sun threaten infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to people, but they do affect life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays from solar eruptions 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 aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down electrical networks and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar event ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, causing disruption in Sweden and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft failing

If we are able to see what happens on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at origin and track its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories observing our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge over others regarding watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the solar disk permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – something the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues that show how strong a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers collaborated to study the data obtained from a major solar eruption 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 sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

Although the numbers make it sound incredibly large, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions carrying power matching even more than that.

"I consider the CME we evaluated happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard for future comparison assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The learnings from this will help us developing the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.