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

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – which was placed in orbit last year – can watch the Sun during the peak of its solar cycle.

As per research, it comes roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees our star changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection 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, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions a day," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect them to be 10 or more each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the star in the center of our solar system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the Sun endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to people, but they do affect life on Earth through generating magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays of a CME include northern lights, being a clear example that solar particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm in history occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people without power for hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, causing disruption across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to observe what happens on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at the source and track its path, it can work as advanced warning to switch off power grids and spacecraft redirecting them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

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

"The instrument is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, blocking the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining solar events in visible light, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated analyzing information gathered from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

Although the numbers make it sound incredibly large, the scientist classifies it as a moderate event.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth carried enormous energy and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs carrying power equal to even more than that.

"I consider the CME we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The learnings from this will help us work out protective measures to be adopted to protect spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.