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Regarding India's first solar observatory, 2026 will be like no other.

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

According to research, it comes approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It involves our star transition from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel in any direction, including towards the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star emits a few solar eruptions a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect them to be 10 or more each day."

Studying CMEs ranks among the key scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the star at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to human life, yet they impact our planet by causing magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions are auroras, which are a clear example that charged particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the expert explains.

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

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving millions in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, causing disruption across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at the source and track its path, this serves as a forewarning to shut down power grids and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

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

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let researchers constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Additionally, it's unique that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data indicating how strong of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers worked together analyzing the data obtained from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Although these figures make it sound incredibly large, the scientist describes it as a moderate event.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs carrying power equal to greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed happened during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The insights gained will assist in work out the countermeasures to be adopted to protect spacecraft in orbit. They will also help achieving a better understanding of our space environment," he concludes.