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For India's first solar observatory, the year 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed into space recently – can watch the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

As per research, this occurs roughly once 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 involves our star transition from calm to stormy and features a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out toward various directions, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun emits two to three CMEs daily," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect there will be over ten daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and two, because activities occurring on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to human life, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays from solar eruptions are auroras, being direct evidence that charged particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting millions in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted air traffic control, leading to chaos in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at the source and watch its path, it can work as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and satellites redirecting them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories observing our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during solar events," notes the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, blocking the Sun's bright surface to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – something the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – crucial data indicating how strong of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, scientists worked together analyzing the data gathered from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 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 the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions with energy content equal to even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The learnings gained will help us work out protective measures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.