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

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed in orbit recently – can observe the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, it comes approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees our star transition from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can head out toward various directions, even toward our planet. At top speed, it would take an ejection about half a day to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect there will be over ten daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important research goals of India's first solar observatory. One, because the ejections offer a chance to study the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present immediate danger to human life, yet they impact life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite fail, knock down electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting millions without power for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, leading to chaos in Sweden and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

If we are able to observe what happens on the Sun's corona and detect a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at origin and track its path, this serves as advanced warning to shut down power grids and spacecraft redirecting them to safety.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other solar missions observing our star, India's spacecraft holds an edge compared to rivals when it comes to watching the corona.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, blocking the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining solar events in visible light, letting it measure eruption heat and heat energy – key clues indicating how strong of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers worked together to study the data gathered from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

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

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on Earth carried enormous energy and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs with energy content equal to greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated to have occurred during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The learnings from this will help us work out the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in near space. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.