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For India's first solar observatory, 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – that entered in orbit last year – can watch the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, this occurs roughly every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees our star changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel in any direction, including towards our planet. At top speed, it would take an ejection about half a day to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun launches two to three CMEs a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect there will be 10 or more daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the key scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, since events that take place on the solar surface endanger systems on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to people, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME include northern lights, which are a clear example that solar particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the scientist explains.

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

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, affecting six million people without power for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, leading to chaos in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to observe events in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at the source and track its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to switch off power grids and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While 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 is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during solar events," notes the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – something the real Moon does only during specific moments.

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

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, scientists collaborated to study information obtained from a major solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to millions of tons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale respectively.

Even though the numbers make it sound massive, the scientist describes it as a moderate event.

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs carrying power equal to even more than that.

"I consider the CME we analyzed happened during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says.

"The learnings from this will assist in developing the countermeasures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. They will also help achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.