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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit last year – will be able to observe the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves the Sun changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of charged particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out in any direction, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun launches two to three CMEs a day," says a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more daily."

Studying CMEs is one of the most important scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the star in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, since events that take place on the solar surface threaten infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to people, yet they impact life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, including many from India, orbit.

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

"But they can also make all the electronics on a satellite malfunction, knock down power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and some other 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 detect solar activity or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at origin and track its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to switch off power grids and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other space observatories observing our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, even during solar events," notes the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues that show the intensity of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, researchers collaborated analyzing the data obtained from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons respectively.

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

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions with energy content matching greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we analyzed happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The learnings from this will assist in developing the countermeasures to implement to protect spacecraft in orbit. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.