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

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

As per scientific data, it comes roughly 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 of great turbulence. It involves the Sun transition from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward our planet. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to cover 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. "Next year, we expect there will be 10 or more daily."

Studying CMEs ranks among the key research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, since events that take place on the solar surface threaten infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to human life, but they do affect life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, being a clear example that solar particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the expert explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite fail, knock down electrical networks and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar event in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, causing disruption in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to observe events on the Sun's corona and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at origin and track its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other space observatories watching our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions in visible light, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated to study information gathered from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Although these figures make it sound massive, the expert classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions with energy content equal to even more than that.

"I consider the CME we evaluated happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says.

"The insights gained will assist in developing protective measures to implement to protect satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of our space environment," he concludes.