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

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – that entered into space last year – can watch our star when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes roughly every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection 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 the Earth. At top speed, it would take a CME about half a day to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions a day," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated 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 star at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the solar surface threaten systems on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to people, but they do affect life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, which are a clear example that solar particles from our star journey to Earth," the expert explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, disable electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving six million people without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to observe events in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at origin and track its path, it can work as advanced warning to switch off power grids and satellites redirecting them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other solar missions observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals when it comes to watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, even during solar events," says the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface to let scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine eruption heat and heat energy – key clues that show how strong of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated to study the data gathered from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

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

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs with energy content equal to greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The learnings gained will help us developing protective measures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.