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

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

According to scientific data, it comes approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees our star transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel in any direction, even toward the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," says a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be over ten each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the key scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the Sun in the center of our solar system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the Sun endanger infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to human life, yet they impact life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in near space, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are direct evidence that solar particles from Sun journey to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"But they can also make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, knock down power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar event ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting millions in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disrupted air traffic control, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at the source and track its path, it can work as a forewarning to shut down power grids and satellites and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data that show the intensity of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists worked together to study information obtained from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – for comparison that sank Titanic weighed much less.

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons respectively.

Even though these figures make it sound massive, the scientist classifies it as a moderate event.

The asteroid that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions carrying power equal to even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated to have occurred during periods was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says.

"The insights from this will help us developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.