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Regarding India's first solar observatory, the year 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit last year – can observe the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It involves the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of plasma that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can head out in any direction, 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.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be over ten daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the key scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the star at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the Sun threaten systems on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to people, but they do affect our planet through generating geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, being a clear example that solar particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the scientist explains.

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, disable electrical networks and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event in history was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving millions without power for hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at origin and track its path, it can work as a forewarning to shut down power grids and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other space observatories watching our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, throughout the year, including during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists constantly study its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses does only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data indicating how strong a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers worked together to study the data obtained from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

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

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

Even though the numbers seem incredibly large, the expert describes it as a moderate event.

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

"In my view the CME we analyzed happened during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he says.

"The learnings gained will assist in work out the countermeasures to implement to protect spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.