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

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – which was placed into space recently – can watch the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes roughly every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It sees the Sun transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel in any direction, even toward the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star emits a few solar eruptions daily," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect them to be 10 or more each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the most important research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the star in the center of our solar system, and secondly, since events occurring on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to human life, yet they impact life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in near space, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME are auroras, which are direct evidence that solar particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the expert clarifies.

"But they can also make all the electronics on a satellite fail, disable electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm in history occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving six million people in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to see what happens on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at origin and track its path, it can work as advanced warning to switch off power grids and satellites redirecting them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

Essentially, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare to let researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study eruptions in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – key clues that show how strong a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers collaborated to study the data obtained from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

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 each.

Even though these figures make it sound incredibly large, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions with energy content equal to even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The insights from this will help us developing the countermeasures to be adopted to protect spacecraft in orbit. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.