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Regarding India's first solar observatory, the year 2026 will be like no other.

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed into space recently – can watch the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

As per research, it comes roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of charged particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes a CME about half a day to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs a day," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect them to be over ten each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the key scientific objectives of India's first solar observatory. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the solar surface endanger systems on Earth and in space.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs seldom present immediate danger to people, but they do affect our planet by causing magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays from solar eruptions include northern lights, being direct evidence that charged particles from our star journey toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite fail, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm in history occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting millions in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, causing chaos in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to see events in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at origin and track its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to shut down power grids and satellites and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other space observatories watching our star, India's spacecraft holds an edge compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, blocking the Sun's bright surface to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining eruptions in visible light, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, scientists worked together to study the data gathered from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

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

Even though these figures make it sound incredibly large, the expert describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth carried enormous energy and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions carrying power equal to even more than that.

"In my view the CME we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison assessing what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he says.

"The insights from this will help us work out the countermeasures to implement to protect satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.