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Regarding India's first solar observatory, the year 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed into space last year – can watch our star when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

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

This period marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel in any direction, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be over ten each day."

Researching CMEs ranks among the key research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the star in the center of our planetary system, and two, because activities occurring on the solar surface threaten systems on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to human life, but they do affect life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions include northern lights, being a clear example that solar particles from our star journey to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, knock down power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving six million people without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to see events in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at origin and track its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to switch off power grids and satellites and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions observing the Sun, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others when it comes to watching the corona.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of almost all of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the expert.

Essentially, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data that show how strong of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

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

It originated 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, its temperature reached extreme levels with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

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

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs carrying power matching even more than that.

"In my view the CME we evaluated happened during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says.

"The insights from this will assist in developing the countermeasures to implement to protect satellites in near space. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.