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Regarding India's first solar observatory, the year 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit recently – will be able to watch the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, it comes approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It involves the Sun changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out in any direction, including towards the Earth. At top speed, it would take a CME about half a day to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star emits a few solar eruptions a day," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect there will be over ten each day."

Researching CMEs is one of the key research goals for the Indian first solar observatory. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, since events occurring on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs seldom present immediate danger to human life, but they do affect our planet by causing magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions include northern lights, being a clear example that charged particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the scientist explains.

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

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar event in history occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid 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 some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to observe 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 switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it 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 expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Additionally, it's unique that can study solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it measure a CME's temperature and heat energy – crucial data that show the intensity of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers worked together to study information obtained from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller in scale each.

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

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

"I consider the CME we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard for future comparison assessing what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The learnings gained will help us work out the countermeasures to implement to protect satellites in orbit. They will also help us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.