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

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered in orbit last year – can observe the Sun during the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection about half a day to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star emits two to three CMEs a day," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect them to be 10 or more daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the star in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to human life, but they do affect our planet by causing geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, including many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions are auroras, which are a clear example that solar particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event in history was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, affecting six million people without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, causing chaos in Sweden and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to observe events on the Sun's corona and detect a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at the source and track its path, it can work as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and satellites redirecting them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other space observatories observing the Sun, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – something the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining solar events in visible light, enabling it to determine eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data that show the intensity a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, researchers collaborated to study information gathered from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale each.

Although the numbers seem incredibly large, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions carrying power equal to even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The insights gained will help us work out protective measures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in near space. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.