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For Aditya-L1, the year 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – which was placed into space recently – will be able to observe the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, this occurs approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles swapping positions.

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

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out in any direction, including towards our planet. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun launches two to three CMEs a day," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect them to be 10 or more daily."

Studying CMEs ranks among the key scientific objectives of India's first solar observatory. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun 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, but they do affect life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most spectacular displays of a CME are auroras, being direct evidence that solar particles from our star journey toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite fail, knock down power grids and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar event ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, causing chaos in Sweden and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to observe events in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at origin and watch its path, this serves as advanced warning to switch off power grids and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories watching the Sun, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk permitting continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and heat energy – crucial data indicating the intensity of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated analyzing information gathered from a major solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – for comparison that sank Titanic weighed much less.

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale each.

Even though these figures seem incredibly large, the expert classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs with energy content matching greater levels.

"In my view the CME we evaluated happened 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 occurs," he states.

"The learnings from this will assist in developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.