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

It's the first time the observatory – that entered in orbit recently – will be able to observe our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes roughly every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It involves our star changing from calm to stormy and features a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and reach a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel in any direction, including towards our planet. At top speed, it would take an ejection 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star launches a few solar eruptions a day," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, it's anticipated there will be over ten daily."

Researching CMEs ranks among the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to people, yet they impact our planet through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays from solar eruptions are auroras, being direct evidence that solar particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"But they can also make all the electronics on a satellite fail, disable power grids and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm in history was the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out telegraph lines across the globe
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting millions without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to see what happens on the Sun's corona and detect a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at the source and track its path, this serves as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other space observatories observing our star, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others when it comes to watching the corona.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during solar events," notes the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, letting it determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues that show how strong of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, researchers collaborated to study information gathered from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

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 much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Although these figures make it sound incredibly large, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs with energy content equal to even more than that.

"I consider the CME we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard for future comparison to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

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