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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 last year – can observe the Sun when it reaches 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 would be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect them to be 10 or more daily."

Researching CMEs ranks among the key research goals of India's first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the star in the center of our solar system, and two, since events occurring on the solar surface endanger systems on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs seldom present immediate danger to people, but they do affect our planet through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in near space, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most spectacular manifestations of a CME include northern lights, being a clear example that solar particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the scientist explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, knock down electrical networks and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar event in history was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, leaving six million people in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disrupted air traffic control, causing chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at origin and watch its path, it can work as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories observing the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the solar disk permitting continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, even during solar events," notes the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data that show the intensity a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, researchers collaborated to study information obtained from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

Even though these figures make it sound massive, the expert classifies it as a moderate event.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs with energy content equal to greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The learnings from this will help us developing the countermeasures to be adopted to protect spacecraft in orbit. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.