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

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed into space last year – will be able to watch the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out in any direction, including towards our planet. At top speed, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun emits two to three CMEs daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect there will be 10 or more daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and two, because activities that take place on the Sun endanger infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to human life, yet they impact our planet by causing magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most spectacular manifestations of a CME are auroras, being direct evidence that solar particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid failed, affecting millions without power for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, causing disruption across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to see events in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at origin and track its path, it can work as a forewarning to shut down power grids and spacecraft redirecting them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other space observatories observing the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – key clues that show how strong a CME would be if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, scientists collaborated to study information gathered from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons respectively.

Although the numbers seem incredibly large, the expert describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs carrying power matching greater levels.

"I consider the CME we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The insights gained will assist in work out protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.