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Regarding India's first solar observatory, the year 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered into space recently – can watch our star during its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, this occurs approximately every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the North and South poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It sees the Sun transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel in any direction, even toward the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun emits two to three CMEs daily," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect them to be 10 or more each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to learn about the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the solar surface endanger systems on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to human life, but they do affect our planet by causing geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are direct evidence that solar particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the scientist explains.

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

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, affecting six million people without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, causing chaos across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• In February 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to see what happens on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its path, this serves as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft and move them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories observing the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data indicating the intensity of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated analyzing information obtained from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale each.

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

The asteroid that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions carrying power matching greater levels.

"In my view the CME we evaluated happened during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The insights from this will help us developing protective measures to implement to protect satellites in orbit. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.