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

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed into space last year – can watch the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to research, this occurs roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It involves the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the number 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 coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel in any direction, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection 15 hours to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star emits two to three CMEs a day," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect there will be 10 or more each day."

Studying CMEs ranks among the most important scientific objectives of India's first solar observatory. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the Sun endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, yet they impact life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, including many from India, orbit.

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

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, disable electrical networks and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar event in history was the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving millions in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted air traffic control, causing chaos in Sweden and some other European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

If we are able to see events in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to shut down power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions watching our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – something the real Moon provide only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues that show how strong of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, scientists worked together analyzing information gathered from a major solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that sank Titanic weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller in scale each.

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

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs with energy content equal to even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard that we'll be using assessing what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The insights from this will help us developing the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.