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

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit last year – can 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 – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It involves our star changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out toward various directions, even toward the Earth. At top speed, it would take a CME about half a day to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star emits a few solar eruptions a day," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the key research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections offer a chance to study the star at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the Sun endanger infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to people, yet they impact life on Earth through generating magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, being direct evidence that solar particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the scientist explains.

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

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event ever recorded was the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, leading to chaos in Sweden and various European airports
• In February 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

If we are able to see 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 watch its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to shut down power grids and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other solar missions watching our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," says the expert.

Essentially, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – something the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it measure a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues indicating how strong a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated analyzing the data obtained from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that sank Titanic weighed much less.

At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Even though the numbers make it sound massive, the scientist describes it as a moderate event.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions with energy content matching even more than that.

"I consider the CME we analyzed happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard for future comparison assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says.

"The learnings from this will help us developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.