The Reason the Year 2026 Will Be an Unprecedented Year for the Indian Solar Observation Mission

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

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit recently – will be able to observe our star when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes roughly every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It sees our star changing from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of charged particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards our planet. At top speed, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star emits two to three CMEs a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be over ten daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the key scientific objectives of India's first solar observatory. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and two, because activities that take place on the solar surface endanger systems on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, yet they impact our planet through generating geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, which are a clear example that charged particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the scientist explains.

"However, they may cause electronic systems on a satellite malfunction, knock down electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar event in history was the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems across the globe
• During 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting millions in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, causing chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft failing

If we are able to observe events in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at the source and track its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

In other words, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare allowing researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining eruptions in visible light, letting it measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data that show how strong of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers collaborated analyzing information obtained from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons respectively.

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

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs with energy content matching even more than that.

"In my view the CME we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard for future comparison assessing what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The insights gained will assist in developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.