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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit last year – will be able to watch our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees our star changing from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel in any direction, even toward our planet. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

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

Studying CMEs is one of the key scientific objectives of India's first solar observatory. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to study the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the Sun endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to human life, yet they impact our planet by causing magnetic disturbances that impact conditions in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, are stationed.

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

"But they can also make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar event in history was the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines across the globe
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting millions in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, causing disruption across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to see events in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at the source and track its path, this serves as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft and move them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions observing the Sun, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine eruption heat and thermal output – key clues indicating the intensity a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, researchers worked together to study the data gathered from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

At origin, the heat reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

Although the numbers make it sound massive, the expert describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions with energy content equal to even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison assessing what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The insights gained will assist in developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.