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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered into space last year – can observe the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, it comes roughly every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles changing places.

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

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh of billions of tons and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can head out in any direction, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions a day," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect them to be over ten each day."

Researching CMEs ranks among the most important scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to study the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the solar surface threaten systems on our planet and in space.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to human life, yet they impact life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME are auroras, being direct evidence that solar particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"But they can also make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, disable electrical networks and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting six million people in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to see events in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at origin and watch its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to switch off power grids and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

There are other space observatories observing our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study eruptions in visible light, letting it determine eruption heat and heat energy – key clues that show how strong a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated to study information obtained from a major CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

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

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs carrying power equal to greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we analyzed happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The insights from this will assist in work out protective measures to implement safeguarding satellites in near space. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.