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For India's first solar observatory, the year 2026 will be like no other.

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed in orbit recently – will be able to observe the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, it comes approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees our star changing from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and reach velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward 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 low-activity times, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions daily," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect there will be over ten daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the most important scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the star in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, since events occurring on the Sun endanger systems on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, yet they impact life on Earth through generating magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are direct evidence that charged particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the scientist explains.

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, disable electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm in history occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines across the globe
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at origin and track its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

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

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study solar events in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data indicating the intensity a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated to study information obtained from a major solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

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

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions with energy content matching greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says.

"The learnings from this will help us work out protective measures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.