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

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered into space recently – will be able to watch our star during the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes approximately every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees the Sun transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized 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, including towards the Earth. At top speed, it would take a CME about half a day to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star launches a few solar eruptions daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more each day."

Studying CMEs is one of the key scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to study the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, since events that take place on the solar surface endanger systems on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present immediate danger to people, but they do affect life on Earth through generating magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most spectacular displays of a CME are auroras, being a clear example that solar particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the expert explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, affecting six million people in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, causing chaos in Sweden and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to see events in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at the source and track its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions watching the Sun, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, letting it measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues indicating the intensity a CME would be if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers collaborated to study information obtained from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated 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.

At origin, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons respectively.

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

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs with energy content matching greater levels.

"In my view the CME we evaluated to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The insights from this will help us work out the countermeasures to implement to protect satellites in near space. They will also help us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.