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For India's first solar observatory, 2026 is expected to be like no other.

It's the first time the observatory – that entered into space last year – can observe the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs roughly every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It involves the Sun changing from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel in any direction, even toward our planet. At top speed, the journey takes a CME about half a day to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun emits two to three CMEs daily," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, it's anticipated there will be over ten each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the most important scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and two, since events occurring on the solar surface threaten systems on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

CMEs seldom present immediate danger to human life, but they do affect our planet through generating geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, orbit.

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

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, disable power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid failed, leaving millions without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

If we are able to see what happens on the Sun's corona and detect a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at the source and track its path, this serves as a forewarning to shut down power grids and satellites and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

There are other space observatories observing our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, throughout the year, even during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare to let researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon does only during specific moments.

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 that show how strong a CME would be if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers worked together to study the data obtained from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons respectively.

Even though the numbers make it sound incredibly large, the expert describes it as a moderate event.

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

"I consider the CME we analyzed happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison assessing what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The learnings gained will help us developing protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.