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

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – which was placed in orbit last year – will be able to watch our star during the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs roughly every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out in any direction, even toward the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to cover the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star launches a few solar eruptions daily," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect there will be over ten daily."

Researching CMEs ranks among the most important scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections offer a chance to study the star in the center of our planetary system, and two, since events occurring on the solar surface endanger systems on Earth and in space.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to human life, yet they impact our planet through generating geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME include northern lights, which are a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, disable electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar event ever recorded was the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, causing chaos in Sweden and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at the source and watch its path, this serves as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions watching our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during solar events," notes the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let scientists constantly study its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study solar events in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data indicating how strong a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers worked together analyzing the data gathered from a major solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale each.

Even though the numbers make it sound incredibly large, the expert describes it as a moderate event.

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs with energy content equal to even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the benchmark that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he says.

"The insights gained will help us developing protective measures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in orbit. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.