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For India's first solar observatory, 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit recently – can observe our star when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs roughly every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It involves the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards our planet. At top speed, the journey takes a CME about half a day to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star emits a few solar eruptions a day," says a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect them to be over ten daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the key research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the star in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the Sun endanger infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, including many from India, orbit.

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

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, knock down power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, causing chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft failing

If we are able to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at the source and track its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals when it comes to watching the corona.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the expert.

In other words, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study eruptions in visible light, letting it determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues that show the intensity a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers worked together analyzing information obtained from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

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.

At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller and 21 kilotons respectively.

Although the numbers seem incredibly large, the expert classifies it as a moderate event.

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions carrying power equal to greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard for future comparison assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The insights from this will assist in work out the countermeasures to implement to protect satellites in orbit. They will also help us gain a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.