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

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed in orbit recently – will be able to observe the Sun during the peak of its solar cycle.

According to research, this occurs approximately every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can head out toward various directions, even toward the Earth. At top speed, it would take a CME about half a day to cover the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star launches a few solar eruptions a day," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect them to be over ten each day."

Researching CMEs is one of the most important research goals for the Indian first solar observatory. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the Sun in the center of our solar system, and two, because activities that take place on the Sun endanger systems on Earth and in space.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to human life, yet they impact life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays of a CME include northern lights, being direct evidence that charged particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar event ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, causing disruption in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to see what happens on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at the source and watch its path, this serves as a forewarning to switch off power grids and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other solar missions watching the Sun, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

Essentially, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare to let researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, scientists worked together to study the data gathered from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Although the numbers make it sound massive, the scientist classifies it as a moderate event.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions with energy content matching even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The insights gained will help us developing the countermeasures to implement to protect satellites in orbit. They will also help us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.