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

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed into space last year – can watch our star when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to research, this occurs roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles swapping positions.

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

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel in any direction, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun launches two to three CMEs daily," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated there will be 10 or more daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the most important scientific objectives of India's first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the Sun threaten infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to people, but they do affect our planet by causing magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are a clear example that solar particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

"But they can also make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, disable electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event in history was the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving millions without power for hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, causing disruption across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at origin and watch its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to switch off power grids and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other space observatories observing our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the solar disk permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let scientists constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining solar events in visible light, letting it measure eruption heat and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, scientists collaborated to study information gathered from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

Although these figures make it sound massive, the expert classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions with energy content matching greater levels.

"I consider the CME 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 when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

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