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Regarding India's first solar observatory, the year 2026 will be like no other.

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered into space last year – can watch the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

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

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves our star transition from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward the Earth. At top speed, it would take an ejection 15 hours to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun launches two to three CMEs a day," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect them to be 10 or more each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the most important scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the star at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, since events occurring on the Sun endanger systems on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to people, but they do affect life on Earth through generating magnetic disturbances that impact conditions in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, which are direct evidence that solar particles from Sun journey to Earth," the scientist explains.

"But they can also cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar event ever recorded was the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving millions without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, causing chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports
• In February 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to observe events in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at the source and watch its path, it can work as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

There are other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size that lets it effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during solar events," notes the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, letting it measure eruption heat and heat energy – key clues that show the intensity of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, scientists collaborated to study information gathered from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

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

The asteroid that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs with energy content equal to even more than that.

"I consider the CME we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says.

"The insights gained will help us developing the countermeasures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.