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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed into space recently – will be able to watch our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, it comes roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent could be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It sees our star transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can head out in any direction, including towards the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star emits two to three CMEs daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated there will be over ten each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the key research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the star in the center of our solar system, and secondly, since events occurring on the solar surface threaten infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to human life, yet they impact life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, being direct evidence that solar particles from our star journey to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, disable power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm in history was the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, affecting six million people in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

If we are able to see events on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at the source and track its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to switch off power grids and spacecraft redirecting them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories observing our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare allowing researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining solar events in visible light, letting it measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues that show how strong a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers collaborated analyzing information gathered from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

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

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs carrying power matching greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The insights gained will assist in work out the countermeasures to implement to protect satellites in orbit. They will also help achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.