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For India's first solar observatory, 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed into space recently – can observe our star during the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees our star changing from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out in any direction, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star launches a few solar eruptions daily," says a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated there will be 10 or more daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the key research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the Sun in the center of our solar system, and two, since events that take place on the Sun endanger infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to human life, yet they impact life on Earth through generating magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, including many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are a clear example that charged particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"But they can also make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar event in history was the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, causing disruption across Scandinavia and various European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to see events in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at origin and watch its path, this serves as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other space observatories observing our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during solar events," says the researcher.

In other words, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Additionally, it's unique that can study solar events in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – key clues that show the intensity of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers worked together to study the data gathered from a major 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, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale respectively.

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

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions with energy content equal to even more than that.

"I consider the CME we evaluated to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard for future comparison assessing what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The learnings from this will assist in developing protective measures to implement to protect satellites in orbit. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.