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

It's the first time the observatory – that entered in orbit recently – will be able to observe the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, it comes roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

This period marked by intense activity. It involves our star changing from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions a day," says a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect them to be 10 or more each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to study the star at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, since events that take place on the solar surface endanger systems on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to people, but they do affect our planet by causing geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, being direct evidence that solar particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the scientist explains.

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, disable power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting millions in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME had led to dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to observe events in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at origin and track its path, it can work as advanced warning to switch off power grids and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during solar events," notes the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, blocking the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining eruptions in visible light, letting it determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – crucial data indicating the intensity of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, scientists collaborated to study the data obtained from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

Even though the numbers make it sound incredibly large, the expert describes it as a moderate event.

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions with energy content matching even more than that.

"In my view the CME we evaluated to have occurred 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 during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The learnings gained will assist in developing protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in near space. They will also help achieving a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.