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

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered into space last year – can observe our star during the peak of its solar cycle.

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

This period of great turbulence. It involves the Sun transition from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out in any direction, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take a CME about half a day to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions a day," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect there will be 10 or more each day."

Researching CMEs ranks among the most important research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the Sun in the center of our solar system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the Sun endanger infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to people, yet they impact our planet by causing magnetic disturbances that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, including Indian satellites, orbit.

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

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, disable power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting millions in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, leading to disruption in Sweden and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to observe events on the Sun's corona and detect a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to switch off power grids and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

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

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare to let researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining eruptions in visible light, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, scientists worked together analyzing information gathered from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

Although the numbers seem massive, the scientist describes it as a moderate event.

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions carrying power equal to even more than that.

"I consider the CME we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The insights from this will assist in developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding satellites in near space. They will also help achieving a better understanding of our space environment," he concludes.