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

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

As per scientific data, it comes roughly once every 11 years as 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 is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of plasma that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can head out in any direction, even toward the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun emits two to three CMEs daily," says a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect there will be 10 or more daily."

Studying CMEs ranks among the key scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. One, because the ejections offer a chance to study the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and two, because activities that take place on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to people, but they do affect our planet through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, being a clear example that charged particles from our star journey to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, disable electrical networks and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting millions in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to observe events in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at origin and track its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft and move them to safety.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other space observatories observing our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of almost all of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, blocking the Sun's bright surface to let scientists constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining eruptions in visible light, letting it determine eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data indicating how strong a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, researchers worked together analyzing information gathered from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Although the numbers make it sound incredibly large, the expert describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs carrying power matching even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated happened when the Sun 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 learnings gained will assist in developing protective measures to implement safeguarding satellites in near space. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.