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

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed in orbit recently – can watch the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

As per scientific data, this occurs approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees our star changing from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh of billions of tons and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel in any direction, even toward the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes a CME about half a day to cover the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star emits a few solar eruptions daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated there will be over ten daily."

Studying CMEs ranks among the key scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, since events that take place on the Sun endanger systems on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to human life, yet they impact life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays of a CME are auroras, being a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the expert explains.

"But they can also make all the electronics on a satellite fail, disable power grids and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to see what happens on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at origin and watch its path, it can work as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other space observatories watching the Sun, India's spacecraft holds an edge compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, including during solar events," notes the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let scientists constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data that show the intensity a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, scientists worked together to study the data obtained from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of explosives – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Even though these figures seem massive, the scientist describes it as a moderate event.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions carrying power equal to greater levels.

"In my view the CME we analyzed happened 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 states.

"The learnings gained will assist in work out the countermeasures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. They will also help us gain a better understanding of our space environment," he concludes.