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

It's the first time the observatory – that entered into space last year – will be able to observe the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, this occurs approximately every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and features 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 may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take a CME 15 hours to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star launches a few solar eruptions a day," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect them to be over ten daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to learn about the Sun in the center of our solar system, and secondly, since events occurring on the Sun endanger systems on Earth and in space.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

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

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, which are direct evidence that charged particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the expert explains.

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, knock down electrical networks and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, leading to chaos in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to see events in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its path, this serves as a forewarning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories observing our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare allowing researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique that can study eruptions in visible light, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data indicating how strong a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated analyzing the data obtained from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller in scale each.

Even though the numbers seem incredibly large, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions with energy content matching even more than that.

"In my view the CME we evaluated happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The learnings from this will assist in work out the countermeasures to implement safeguarding satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.