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

It's the first time the observatory – that entered into space recently – can observe our star during its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, it comes approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves our star changing from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME can weigh of billions of tons and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel in any direction, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star emits two to three CMEs a day," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect there will be over ten daily."

Researching CMEs is one of the most important scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections offer a chance to study the star at the centre of our solar system, and two, because activities occurring on the Sun endanger infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to human life, yet they impact our planet by causing geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, including Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, being direct evidence that charged particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the expert explains.

"But they can also make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, disable power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar event in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, leaving millions in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, leading to chaos in Sweden and some other European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to observe events on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection 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 spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions watching our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge over others regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, enabling it to 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 next year's peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated analyzing information obtained from a major CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons respectively.

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

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs with energy content equal to even more than that.

"I consider the CME we analyzed to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The learnings from this will assist in developing protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in near space. They will also help achieving a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.