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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit recently – will be able to watch the Sun during the peak of its solar cycle.

According to research, it comes roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME can weigh of billions of tons and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out in any direction, even toward the Earth. At top speed, it would take an ejection about half a day to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun launches two to three CMEs a day," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect there will be over ten each day."

Studying CMEs is one of the key research goals of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and two, since events that take place on the Sun threaten systems on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to human life, but they do affect our planet by causing magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, being a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, disable power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving six million people without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, causing disruption in Sweden and various European airports
• In February 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at the source and watch its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to shut down power grids and satellites and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories watching our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, including during eclipses and occultations," says the expert.

In other words, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining eruptions in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – key clues that show how strong a CME would be if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, scientists worked together analyzing the data gathered from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale each.

Even though these figures seem incredibly large, the scientist describes it as a moderate event.

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions carrying power equal to greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The learnings gained will help us developing the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.