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

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – which was placed into space last year – will be able to watch our star when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to research, this occurs roughly every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It involves the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and reach a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions daily," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more each day."

Researching CMEs is one of the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and two, because activities occurring on the Sun endanger systems on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present immediate danger to people, but they do affect our planet by causing magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, including Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays from solar eruptions include northern lights, being a clear example that solar particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

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

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting millions without power for hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to disruption in Sweden and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to observe what happens on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to shut down power grids and spacecraft redirecting them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare to let researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine eruption heat and thermal output – key clues that show how strong of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists worked together to study information gathered from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to millions of tons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

Even though these figures make it sound massive, the expert describes it as a moderate event.

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions carrying power matching greater levels.

"In my view the CME we analyzed happened during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison assessing what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The insights from this will assist in developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.