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

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed into space last year – will be able to watch the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It involves the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a CME can weigh of billions of tons and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel in any direction, even toward the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection about half a day to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star emits a few solar eruptions a day," says a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect there will be 10 or more each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the key research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and two, because activities occurring on the Sun endanger systems on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to people, but they do affect life on Earth through generating magnetic disturbances that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, including 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 clarifies.

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

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm in history was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting six million people in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, leading to disruption in Sweden and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at origin and watch its path, this serves as advanced warning to shut down power grids and satellites redirecting them to safety.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other solar missions watching the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during solar events," says the expert.

Essentially, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data indicating how strong of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, scientists collaborated to study information obtained from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

Although these figures seem incredibly large, the expert classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs carrying power equal to even more than that.

"In my view the CME we analyzed happened during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard for future comparison to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he states.

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