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

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

According to scientific data, it comes roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees our star transition from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel in any direction, even toward the Earth. At top speed, it would take an ejection about half a day to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star emits a few solar eruptions daily," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect there will be 10 or more daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and two, because activities that take place on the Sun endanger systems on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to people, but they do affect our planet through generating magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, being direct evidence that solar particles from our star journey toward our planet," the expert explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, knock down electrical networks and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar event ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, causing disruption in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at origin and track its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to shut down power grids and spacecraft redirecting them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

There are other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk permitting continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare to let scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it measure eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data that show the intensity of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, researchers worked together to study the data obtained from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic weighed much less.

At origin, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons respectively.

Although these figures make it sound massive, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions carrying power equal to even more than that.

"In my view the CME we evaluated to have occurred during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The learnings from this will assist in developing protective measures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in near space. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.