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For India's first solar observatory, 2026 will be truly unique.

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

As per research, this occurs approximately every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out in any direction, including towards the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to cover the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be over ten each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the most important research goals of India's first solar observatory. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and two, because activities occurring on the solar surface threaten infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to human life, but they do affect our planet by causing geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME are auroras, which are a clear example that solar particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the expert explains.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, disable power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving millions in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at origin and watch its path, this serves as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other solar missions observing our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others when it comes to watching the corona.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare to let researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data that show the intensity a CME would be if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, scientists collaborated analyzing the data gathered from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller in scale each.

Even though the numbers make it sound massive, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions carrying power matching even more than that.

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

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