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Regarding India's first solar observatory, 2026 is expected to be like no other.

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – which was placed in orbit recently – can observe the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, this occurs approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out in any direction, including towards our planet. At top speed, the journey takes a CME about half a day to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated there will be 10 or more daily."

Researching CMEs is one of the most important scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the star at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, since events occurring on the Sun threaten systems on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to human life, but they do affect our planet through generating magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, being direct evidence that solar particles from our star journey to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems on a satellite malfunction, knock down electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving millions in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, causing chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft failing

With capability to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at the source and track its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories observing the Sun, India's spacecraft holds an edge compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare to let scientists constantly study its faint outer corona – something the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study eruptions in visible light, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues that show how strong of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, researchers worked together to study information obtained from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller and 21 kilotons respectively.

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

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions carrying power equal to even more than that.

"I consider the CME we analyzed to have occurred during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The learnings from this will assist in work out the countermeasures to be adopted to protect satellites in near space. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he concludes.