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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed into space recently – will be able to watch the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, it comes approximately every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It involves our star transition from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward the Earth. At top speed, it would take an ejection 15 hours to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs a day," says a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more daily."

Researching CMEs is one of the most important research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections offer a chance to learn about the star in the center of our solar system, and two, since events that take place on the Sun endanger systems on our planet and in space.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to human life, yet they impact life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays of a CME are auroras, which are a clear example that solar particles from Sun journey to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, knock down electrical networks and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm in history occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving six million people without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, causing chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to observe events on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at origin and watch its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories observing our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, even during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses 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 that show how strong a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers worked together analyzing information gathered from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship 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 used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

Even though these figures make it sound incredibly large, the scientist classifies it as a moderate event.

The asteroid 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 the CME we analyzed happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The learnings gained will help us work out the countermeasures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. They will also help us gain a better understanding of our space environment," he concludes.