Why the Year 2026 Will Be a Year Like No Other for the Indian Solar Observation Mission

Regarding India's first solar observatory, 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit recently – will be able to observe the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs approximately once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees our star transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of fire 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 toward various directions, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME about half a day to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions daily," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect there will be 10 or more each day."

Researching CMEs is one of the most important 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 solar system, and secondly, since events that take place on the Sun threaten systems on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to human life, but they do affect life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, including Indian satellites, orbit.

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

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, disable power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting millions in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disrupted air traffic control, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft failing

If we are able to see events in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at origin and track its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to shut down power grids and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories watching our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, including during solar events," notes the expert.

In other words, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, it's unique that can study eruptions in visible light, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues that show the intensity a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, scientists collaborated to study the data obtained from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons respectively.

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

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on our planet was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions carrying power matching even more than that.

"I consider the CME we analyzed happened during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The learnings from this will assist in work out the countermeasures to implement to protect satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.