The Reason the Year 2026 Will Be a Year Like No Other for India's Sun Mission

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

It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered into space recently – can watch our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs roughly every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees our star transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and reach velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel in any direction, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star launches a few solar eruptions a day," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be over ten each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important scientific objectives of India's first solar observatory. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the star in the center of our solar system, and secondly, since events occurring on the Sun endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present immediate danger to human life, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, which are a clear example that charged particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

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

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting six million people without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted air traffic control, leading to chaos in Sweden and some other 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 a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at origin and watch its path, it can work as a forewarning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during solar events," says the researcher.

In other words, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique that can study eruptions in visible light, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data that show the intensity of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated to study the data gathered from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

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

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller in scale each.

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

The asteroid that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs with energy content matching even more than that.

"In my view the CME we evaluated happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The learnings gained will help us work out protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in near space. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.