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

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

According to scientific data, it comes 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 of great turbulence. It involves the Sun transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up 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 toward various directions, even toward our planet. At top speed, it would take a CME about half a day to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions a day," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect them to be 10 or more daily."

Studying 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 star at the centre of our solar system, and two, because activities occurring on the Sun threaten infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to people, yet they impact life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in near space, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most spectacular displays of a CME include northern lights, which are direct evidence that solar particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, disable power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving six million people in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to observe what happens on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at the source and watch its path, this serves as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk permitting continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface to let researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining solar events in visible light, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data that show how strong a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated analyzing information gathered from a major CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic 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 – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons respectively.

Although these figures seem massive, the scientist classifies it as a moderate event.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions with energy content matching even more than that.

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

"The insights gained will assist in developing the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. They will also help us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.