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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed into space recently – will be able to watch the Sun during the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes approximately every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It involves our star transition from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and reach velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards our planet. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated there will be over ten daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the key scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to study the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and two, since events that take place on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to human life, but they do affect life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, including Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME include northern lights, being direct evidence that solar particles from Sun journey to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, knock down power grids and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting millions without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disrupted air traffic control, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at origin and watch its path, this serves as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other solar missions observing our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique that can study solar events using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data that show how strong of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's 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 during early hours. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Although these figures seem incredibly large, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

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

"In my view this eruption we analyzed to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The insights from this will assist in developing the countermeasures to be adopted to protect spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.