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

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – will be able to watch our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

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

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt 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 head out toward various directions, even toward our planet. At top speed, it would take a CME 15 hours to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect there will be over ten daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the key scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the star at the centre of our solar system, and two, since events that take place on the Sun endanger systems on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to people, yet they impact our planet by causing geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are a clear example that charged particles from our star journey toward our planet," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, knock down power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm in history occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, leaving six million people in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at the source and track its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions watching our star, India's spacecraft holds an edge compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during solar events," notes the expert.

Essentially, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues that show the intensity of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers worked together analyzing the data gathered from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to millions of tons of explosives – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons respectively.

Even though the numbers seem massive, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs carrying power equal to even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed to have occurred during periods was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard for future comparison assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says.

"The learnings from this will assist in developing protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.