The Reason the Year 2026 Is Set to Be an Unprecedented Year for India's Solar Observation Mission

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

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed in orbit recently – can watch our star during the peak of its solar cycle.

As per scientific data, it comes approximately every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves the Sun changing from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can head out toward various directions, even toward the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to cover the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star emits two to three CMEs a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more each day."

Studying CMEs is one of the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the Sun in the center of our solar system, and secondly, since events that take place on the Sun threaten infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to people, but they do affect our planet by causing magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most spectacular displays of a CME are auroras, which are direct evidence that solar particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

"But they can also make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting millions without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, causing disruption in Sweden and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to see what happens on the Sun's corona and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at the source and track its path, it can work as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and satellites redirecting them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare allowing scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists collaborated to study information gathered from a major CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

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

Even though the numbers make it sound incredibly large, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs with energy content matching greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The learnings from this will assist in work out protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.