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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 in orbit last year – will be able to watch our star during the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes roughly every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves our star changing from calm to stormy and features a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions a day," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated there will be over ten each day."

Studying CMEs is one of the most important research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the Sun in the center of our solar system, and secondly, since events that take place on the solar surface endanger systems on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present immediate danger to human life, but they do affect our planet by causing geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in near space, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, being a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

"But they can also make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm ever recorded was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, causing disruption in Sweden and some other European airports
• In February 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to observe events on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at the source and track its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

There are other solar missions observing the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the researcher.

In other words, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Additionally, it's unique that can study eruptions in visible light, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data indicating the intensity of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, researchers worked together to study the data gathered from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – 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 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

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

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs carrying power equal to greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we analyzed happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The learnings gained will assist in work out protective measures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.