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

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

As per scientific data, it comes approximately every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It involves our star transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of charged particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star emits a few solar eruptions daily," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated there will be 10 or more each day."

Studying CMEs ranks among the key research goals of India's first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and two, since events occurring on the Sun endanger infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to human life, but they do affect our planet through generating magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME are auroras, being direct evidence that solar particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the scientist explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite fail, knock down power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar event ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, causing disruption across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to observe events in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at the source and watch its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions watching our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, including during eclipses and occultations," says the expert.

Essentially, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data that show the intensity of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, researchers worked together to study information gathered from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, the heat reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Although these figures seem massive, the expert describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions carrying power equal to even more than that.

"I consider the CME we evaluated happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison assessing what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The learnings from this will assist in developing the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in near space. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.