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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 – that entered in orbit recently – will be able to observe the Sun during the peak of its solar cycle.

As per scientific data, this occurs roughly every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It involves the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun emits two to three CMEs daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect there will be over ten daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the key scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the star at the centre of our solar system, and two, since events occurring on the solar surface threaten infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, yet they impact our planet by causing magnetic disturbances that impact conditions in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, which are a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the expert explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, disable electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event in history occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting six million people in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to disruption in Sweden and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at origin and watch its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

There are other solar missions watching the Sun, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare allowing scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, it's unique that can study solar events in visible light, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and heat energy – 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 analyzing information gathered from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

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

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions carrying power matching even more than that.

"In my view the CME we evaluated happened during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The insights from this will assist in developing protective measures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. They will also help achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.