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For India's first solar observatory, 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed into space last year – can observe the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, this occurs roughly every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the planet's poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees our star changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh of billions of tons and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards our planet. At top speed, it would take a CME about half a day to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star launches a few solar eruptions daily," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be over ten daily."

Researching CMEs is one of the most important research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to study the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, since events that take place on the Sun endanger systems on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to human life, but they do affect life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

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

"However, they may cause electronic systems on a satellite malfunction, knock down power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm ever recorded was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, affecting six million people without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, leading to chaos in Sweden and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

If we are able to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at origin and watch its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to switch off power grids and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories observing the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study solar events in visible light, enabling it to determine eruption heat and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, scientists collaborated analyzing information obtained from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons respectively.

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

The space rock which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs with energy content matching greater levels.

"I consider the CME we evaluated happened during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard for future comparison assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The learnings from this will assist in developing protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.