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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 in orbit recently – will be able to watch our star during its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, this occurs roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing 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 blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out toward various directions, even toward our planet. At top speed, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated there will be 10 or more daily."

Researching CMEs is one of the key research goals for the Indian first solar observatory. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the star in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to people, yet they impact our planet by causing magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are a clear example that charged particles from our star journey to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, knock down power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm in history occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting millions without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, causing disruption across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft failing

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

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other solar missions watching our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, throughout the year, even during solar events," notes the researcher.

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

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions in visible light, letting it measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data that show the intensity a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

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

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons respectively.

Even though these figures seem massive, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth carried enormous energy and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions with energy content equal to greater levels.

"I consider the CME we evaluated happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The insights gained will help us work out the countermeasures to implement to protect satellites in near space. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.