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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit last year – can observe our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, this occurs roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees our star changing from calm to stormy and features a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km per 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 between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun emits two to three CMEs daily," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect them to be over ten daily."

Studying CMEs is one of the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to study the Sun in the center of our solar system, and secondly, since events occurring on the Sun endanger systems on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to people, but they do affect life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, which are a clear example that charged particles from our star journey toward our planet," the scientist explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, leaving millions in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, causing disruption in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at the source and track its path, this serves as advanced warning to switch off power grids and satellites and move them to safety.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other space observatories observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

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

Essentially, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let scientists constantly study its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique that can study solar events using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine eruption heat and heat energy – key clues indicating how strong of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, scientists worked together to study the data gathered from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

At origin, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

Even though the numbers seem incredibly large, the expert describes it as a moderate event.

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions with energy content equal to even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated to have occurred during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard for future comparison to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The insights from this will assist in developing protective measures to implement to protect spacecraft in orbit. They will also help achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.