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Regarding India's first solar observatory, 2026 is expected to be like no other.

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed into space last year – will be able to watch the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, this occurs roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period marked by intense activity. It involves the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out in any direction, including towards the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes a CME about half a day to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions daily," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect there will be 10 or more daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the key research goals of India's first solar observatory. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the star at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the Sun threaten systems on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to people, yet they impact life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, which are direct evidence that charged particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the scientist explains.

"But they can also cause electronic systems on a satellite malfunction, knock down electrical networks and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event ever recorded was the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people without power for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, leading to chaos in Sweden and some other European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at the source and track its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions watching the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk permitting continuous observation of almost all of the corona around the clock, throughout the year, even during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let scientists constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, letting it determine eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data that show 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 worked together analyzing information obtained from a major CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons respectively.

Although these figures make it sound incredibly large, the scientist describes it as a moderate event.

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions carrying power equal to even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed to have occurred during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The learnings from this will help us developing the countermeasures to implement to protect spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.