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For India's first solar observatory, the year 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the observatory – that entered in orbit last year – will be able to watch the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, it comes approximately every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It involves the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel in any direction, even toward our planet. At top speed, it would take an ejection 15 hours to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star launches two to three CMEs a day," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect there will be 10 or more each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the star at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, since events that take place on the Sun endanger systems on our planet and in space.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to human life, yet they impact life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, being direct evidence that solar particles from Sun journey to Earth," the scientist explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, knock down power grids and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disrupted air traffic control, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to observe events on the Sun's corona and detect a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at origin and track its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and satellites and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

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

"The instrument is the exact size that lets it effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," notes the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – something the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – key clues indicating the intensity a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated analyzing the data gathered from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

Even though these figures make it sound incredibly large, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions carrying power equal to greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated happened during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison assessing what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The insights gained will help us work out protective measures to implement to protect satellites in near space. They will also help us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.