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Regarding India's first solar observatory, 2026 will be like no other.

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered into space recently – will be able to observe the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

As per scientific data, this occurs roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It involves our star transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards our planet. 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 low-activity times, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions daily," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect there will be over ten each day."

Researching CMEs is one of the key scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, since events that take place on the Sun threaten systems on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, being direct evidence that solar particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the scientist explains.

"But they can also cause electronic systems on a satellite malfunction, knock down power grids and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar event ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, causing chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at the source and track its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to switch off power grids and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories watching our star, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – something the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data indicating how strong a CME would be if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists worked together analyzing the data obtained from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to millions of tons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale respectively.

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

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions with energy content equal to greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated happened during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard for future comparison assessing what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he says.

"The learnings from this will help us work out protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in near space. They will also help achieving a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.