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

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed into space last year – can observe our star when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to research, this occurs approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out in any direction, including towards our planet. At top speed, it would take an ejection about half a day to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star launches a few solar eruptions daily," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be over ten each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the key research goals of India's first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, since events occurring on the Sun endanger systems on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to people, yet they impact our planet by causing magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, being a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the expert explains.

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

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event in history occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting millions in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, leading to chaos in Sweden and some other European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to observe what happens on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at origin and track its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to switch off power grids and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let scientists constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining solar events in visible light, letting it measure eruption heat and thermal output – key clues indicating the intensity of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated analyzing information gathered from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated 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 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

Although the numbers make it sound massive, the expert describes it as a moderate event.

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions carrying power equal to greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we analyzed to have occurred during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The learnings from this will help us work out the countermeasures to implement to protect satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.