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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 in orbit recently – will be able to watch the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, this occurs roughly every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

This period marked by intense activity. It involves our star transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can head out toward various directions, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star launches a few solar eruptions daily," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated there will be over ten each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the key research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun in the center of our solar system, and two, since events that take place on the solar surface threaten infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to people, yet they impact our planet through generating geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, being a clear example that charged particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the scientist explains.

"But they can also make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, disable power grids and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting millions without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to see events on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

There are other solar missions watching our star, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others when it comes to watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing scientists constantly study its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it measure eruption heat and heat energy – key clues indicating how strong a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, researchers collaborated analyzing the data gathered from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

At origin, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller in scale each.

Although these figures seem massive, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs carrying power matching even more than that.

"In my view the CME we analyzed to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The learnings from this will assist in developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.