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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered into space last year – can watch the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, this occurs approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It sees the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel in any direction, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME about half a day to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions daily," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated there will be 10 or more each day."

Researching CMEs ranks among the most important scientific objectives of India's first solar observatory. One, because the ejections offer a chance to learn about the star in the center of our solar system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the Sun threaten systems on our planet and in space.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to people, yet they impact our planet through generating geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, being a clear example that solar particles from our star journey to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, knock down electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm in history was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving six million people in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, causing disruption in Sweden and some other European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to see events in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at the source and track its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and satellites and move them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories watching our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the researcher.

In other words, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, letting it measure a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues indicating the intensity a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers collaborated analyzing information gathered from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass 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 comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons respectively.

Although the numbers make it sound massive, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs with energy content equal to even more than that.

"In my view the CME we evaluated happened during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard for future comparison assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The learnings from this will assist in work out the countermeasures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.