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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 into space recently – can observe our star during its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, it comes roughly every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

This period marked by intense activity. It involves our star changing from calm to stormy and features a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can head out in any direction, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take a CME about half a day to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star emits a few solar eruptions daily," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important research goals of India's first solar observatory. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the star at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, since events that take place on the solar surface threaten systems on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to human life, but they do affect life on Earth through generating magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, being direct evidence that solar particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the expert explains.

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

Historical Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving millions in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, causing chaos across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to see what happens on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to switch off power grids and satellites redirecting them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions observing our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others when it comes to watching the corona.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, even during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare allowing scientists constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data indicating the intensity a CME would be if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for next year's peak solar activity period, scientists worked together analyzing the data obtained from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

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 reached extreme levels with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale each.

Even though the numbers make it sound massive, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions carrying power equal to even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed to have occurred during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The learnings from this will help us work out the countermeasures to implement to protect spacecraft in orbit. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.