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For India's first solar observatory, 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit last year – will be able to observe our star during its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, it comes roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves our star changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out toward various directions, even toward the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to cover the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions a day," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more daily."

Researching CMEs ranks among the key research goals for the Indian first solar observatory. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the star in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, since events that take place on the Sun threaten systems on Earth and in space.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present immediate danger to people, yet they impact our planet by causing geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions are auroras, being direct evidence that charged particles from our star journey to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, knock down electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving six million people in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, causing chaos in Sweden and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

If we are able to see what happens on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at the source and track its path, this serves as a forewarning to shut down power grids and spacecraft redirecting them to safety.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other space observatories observing the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – something the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study eruptions in visible light, enabling it to determine eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data that show how strong a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, scientists collaborated to study the data gathered from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

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

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions carrying power matching even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we analyzed happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard for future comparison assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The learnings from this will help us developing protective measures to implement safeguarding satellites in orbit. They will also help achieving a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.