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

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

As per scientific data, it comes roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It involves our star changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can head out toward various directions, even toward our planet. At top speed, it would take a CME 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated there will be over ten daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the key research goals for the Indian first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and two, because activities that take place on the Sun endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to people, but they do affect our planet by causing geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME are auroras, which are a clear example that charged particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the expert explains.

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

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar event in history occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving millions in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, causing chaos in Sweden and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to observe events in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at the source and watch its path, this serves as advanced warning to shut down power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories watching our star, India's spacecraft holds an edge compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of almost all of the corona around the clock, throughout the year, even during solar events," notes the expert.

Essentially, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – key clues that show the intensity a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

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

It originated in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons respectively.

Although these figures seem massive, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions with energy content matching even more than that.

"I consider the CME we evaluated happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The learnings gained will help us work out protective measures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in near space. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.