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

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – that entered in orbit last year – will be able to watch our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, it comes roughly every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of charged particles, a CME can weigh of billions of tons and reach velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel in any direction, even toward our planet. At top speed, it would take a CME about half a day to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun launches two to three CMEs daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect them to be 10 or more daily."

Studying CMEs ranks among the key scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the star in the center of our solar system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to people, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME include northern lights, which are a clear example that solar particles from Sun journey to Earth," the expert explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite fail, knock down power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving millions without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to chaos in Sweden and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to observe events on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at origin and watch its path, this serves as advanced warning to switch off power grids and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions observing our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface allowing 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 using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and heat energy – crucial data indicating the intensity of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, scientists worked together analyzing the data obtained from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale respectively.

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

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs with energy content matching even more than that.

"In my view the CME we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The learnings from this will assist in developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.