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For India's first solar observatory, 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – will be able to watch our star when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

As per scientific data, it comes roughly every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized 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 in any direction, including towards the Earth. At top speed, it would take an ejection 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star emits two to three CMEs a day," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect them to be over ten each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the Sun endanger systems on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to human life, but they do affect life on Earth through generating magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, including Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most spectacular displays of a CME include northern lights, being direct evidence that charged particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the scientist explains.

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

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, leading to chaos in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to observe events on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

There are other space observatories observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

In other words, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, letting it measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues that show the intensity of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated analyzing the data obtained from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

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

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions carrying power matching greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says.

"The learnings from this will help us developing protective measures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of our space environment," he concludes.