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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 spacecraft – which was placed into space recently – can watch our star during its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, this occurs approximately every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It involves the Sun changing from calm to stormy 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 from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out toward various directions, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take a CME about half a day to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated there will be over ten each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the key research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and two, since events occurring on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to people, but they do affect our planet by causing magnetic disturbances that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays of a CME include northern lights, which are direct evidence that charged particles from our star journey toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down power grids and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event ever recorded was the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out telegraph lines across the globe
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting millions in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted air traffic control, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at the source and watch its path, it can work as a forewarning to switch off power grids and spacecraft redirecting them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

There are other solar missions observing our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others regarding watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the researcher.

In other words, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare to let researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study eruptions in visible light, letting it measure eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data that show the intensity of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers worked together to study information gathered from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to millions of tons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale respectively.

Although these figures seem incredibly large, the expert classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

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

"In my view this eruption we analyzed happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard that we'll be using assessing what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The learnings gained will assist in developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.