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

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed into space recently – can observe the Sun during the peak of its solar cycle.

As per research, it comes roughly every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It involves our star changing from calm to stormy and features a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that erupt 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 of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out in any direction, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take a CME 15 hours to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun launches two to three CMEs daily," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect them to be over ten each day."

Researching CMEs ranks among the key scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to study the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, since events that take place on the Sun endanger infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present immediate danger to human life, but they do affect our planet by causing magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, being a clear example that solar particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the scientist explains.

"But they can also make all the electronics on a satellite fail, knock down electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event in history was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, leaving millions without power for hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, causing chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft failing

If we are able to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at origin and track its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and satellites redirecting them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

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

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

Essentially, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, blocking the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – something the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions in visible light, letting it measure a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues that show how strong a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers worked together analyzing information obtained from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

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

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions carrying power matching greater levels.

"In my view the CME we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard that we'll be using assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The insights from this will assist in developing protective measures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in near space. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.