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Regarding India's first solar observatory, 2026 will be like no other.

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit last year – can observe the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, it comes approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It involves our star transition from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out 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 velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out in any direction, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME about half a day to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star emits two to three CMEs daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect them to be over ten daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the key research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the star in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, since events that take place on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to human life, but they do affect our planet by causing geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, which are a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," 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 storm in history was the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, causing disruption in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at origin and track its path, it can work as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, including during eclipses and occultations," says the expert.

In other words, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – something the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it determine eruption heat and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, scientists collaborated analyzing information obtained from a major CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

At origin, the heat reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Even though the numbers seem incredibly large, the scientist describes it as a moderate event.

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs carrying power matching even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he says.

"The learnings gained will help us developing the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.