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

It's the first time the observatory – that entered in orbit recently – will be able to watch the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

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

It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel in any direction, including towards the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to cover the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun emits two to three CMEs a day," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect them to be over ten daily."

Studying CMEs ranks among the key research goals of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the star at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, since events occurring on the solar surface threaten infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to human life, yet they impact our planet through generating magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, being direct evidence that solar particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the expert clarifies.

"But they can also make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded was the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting six million people without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to observe events in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at the source and track its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft and move them to safety.

The Mission's Special Capability

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

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – key clues that show the intensity of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, researchers collaborated to study information obtained from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale each.

Even though these figures make it sound 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 during solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs carrying power equal to greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says.

"The learnings from this will assist in work out the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in orbit. They will also help us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.