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

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed in orbit recently – will be able to watch our star during the peak of its solar cycle.

As per scientific data, it comes roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of plasma that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel in any direction, even toward the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions daily," says a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be over ten each day."

Studying CMEs is one of the key scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and two, because activities occurring on the Sun threaten systems on Earth and in space.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to human life, yet they impact our planet through generating magnetic disturbances that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays from solar eruptions are auroras, which are direct evidence that solar particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the expert explains.

"But they can also make all the electronics on a satellite fail, disable power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving six million people in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at origin and track its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

There are other solar missions watching our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during solar events," says the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare to let researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique that can study solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues that show how strong of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated analyzing the data gathered from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that sank Titanic weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

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

The asteroid that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs carrying power equal to even more than that.

"I consider the CME we analyzed happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard for future comparison to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The insights from this will help us developing the countermeasures to implement to protect satellites in near space. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.