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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – can observe our star during the peak of its solar cycle.

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

This period of great turbulence. It sees the Sun transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel in any direction, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection about half a day to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions daily," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the star at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the Sun endanger systems on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to human life, yet they impact life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME are auroras, which are direct evidence that solar particles from Sun journey to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, disable electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event in history was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disrupted air traffic control, causing disruption across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• In February 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at origin and watch its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to shut down power grids and satellites and move them to safety.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other space observatories watching the Sun, India's spacecraft holds an edge compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data indicating how strong a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, scientists worked together analyzing information obtained from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

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

The space rock which wiped out prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs with energy content equal to even more than that.

"In my view the CME we evaluated to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard for future comparison to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The insights from this will help us developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.