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

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered into space last year – will be able to observe the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It involves our star changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel in any direction, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection 15 hours 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 an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated there will be over ten each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the most important scientific objectives of India's first solar observatory. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun in the center of our solar system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the solar surface endanger systems on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to human life, yet they impact life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME are auroras, being direct evidence that charged particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the scientist explains.

"But they can also make all the electronics on a satellite fail, disable power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving six million people without power for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, leading to chaos in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to observe events in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at the source and watch its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument is the exact size that lets it effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, letting it determine eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data indicating the intensity a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers worked together analyzing the data gathered from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic weighed much less.

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels and the energy content comparable to millions of tons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Even though the numbers 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 the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions with energy content equal to even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The learnings gained will assist in developing protective measures to implement safeguarding satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.