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Regarding India's first solar observatory, 2026 is expected to be like no other.

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – can watch our star during the peak of its solar cycle.

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

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees the Sun transition from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and reach a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions a day," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect them to be over ten each day."

Studying CMEs ranks among the most important scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the star in the center of our solar system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the solar surface threaten systems on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to human life, yet they impact life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, orbit.

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

"But they can also cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, disable electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event in history occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid failed, affecting six million people without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to dozens of spacecraft failing

If we are able to observe events in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other solar missions watching our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, including during solar events," says the expert.

Essentially, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare to let scientists constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique that can study eruptions in visible light, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and heat energy – crucial data indicating how strong a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, scientists collaborated analyzing information gathered from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale each.

Although the numbers seem incredibly large, the expert describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs carrying power matching greater levels.

"In my view the CME we analyzed to have occurred during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using assessing what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The learnings from this will assist in work out the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.