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For India's first solar observatory, 2026 will be truly unique.

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – that entered in orbit recently – will be able to watch the Sun during the peak of its solar cycle.

As per research, it comes roughly every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees our star changing from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards our planet. At top speed, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star launches a few solar eruptions a day," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect there will be 10 or more daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the star at the centre of our solar system, and two, since events occurring on the Sun endanger infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to human life, yet they impact life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME include northern lights, which are a clear example that charged particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, knock down electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, causing chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to observe events on the Sun's corona and detect a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at the source and track its path, this serves as advanced warning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other solar missions watching our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk permitting continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, blocking the Sun's bright surface to let researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining eruptions in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data that show the intensity a CME would be if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists collaborated analyzing the data obtained from a major solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

At origin, the heat reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Even though the numbers seem incredibly large, the expert classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions with energy content matching greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The learnings gained will help us developing the countermeasures to implement to protect spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.