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

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – that entered into space recently – will be able to watch the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs roughly every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves our star transition from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh of billions of tons and reach velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out toward various directions, even toward the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection 15 hours to cover the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated 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 at the centre of our solar system, and two, since events that take place on the Sun endanger infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to people, but they do affect our planet by causing magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, including many from India, are stationed.

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

"But they can also make all the electronics on a satellite fail, disable power grids and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event in history occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, affecting millions without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, causing disruption in Sweden and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to see what happens on the Sun's corona and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at the source and track its path, it can work as a forewarning to shut down power grids and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other space observatories watching our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, including during solar events," notes the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface to let scientists constantly study its faint outer corona – something the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining eruptions in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – key clues that show the intensity of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated analyzing information gathered from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

At origin, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons respectively.

Even though these figures make it sound massive, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs with energy content matching even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed happened during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The insights gained will help us work out the countermeasures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.