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

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit last year – can watch the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, this occurs approximately every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period marked by intense activity. It involves the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of charged particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and reach velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take a CME 15 hours to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star launches a few solar eruptions a day," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect there will be over ten each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the key research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the Sun in the center of our solar system, and two, because activities that take place on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to people, yet they impact our planet by causing magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays of a CME include northern lights, which are direct evidence that charged particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, disable power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm in history was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting six million people without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, causing disruption across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to dozens of spacecraft failing

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, measure its heat at origin and track its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

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

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

In other words, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare to let researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine eruption heat and heat energy – key clues indicating how strong a CME would be if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers worked together to study information gathered from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller and 21 kilotons respectively.

Although these figures seem massive, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs with energy content matching even more than that.

"I consider the CME we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison assessing what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The learnings gained will assist in developing protective measures to be adopted to protect spacecraft in orbit. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.