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

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

It's the first time the observatory – that entered into space recently – will be able to watch the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

As per scientific data, this occurs approximately every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves the Sun transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh of billions of tons and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out in any direction, including towards the Earth. At top speed, it would take a CME 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be over ten daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the key research goals of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to study the star at the centre of our planetary system, and two, since events occurring on the solar surface endanger systems on Earth and in space.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to people, yet they impact life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, including many from India, are stationed.

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

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, knock down electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting six million people without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted air traffic control, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to switch off power grids and satellites and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

There are other space observatories observing our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, even during solar events," notes the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, it's unique capable of examining solar events in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data that show how strong a CME would be when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers worked together to study information gathered from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

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

At origin, the heat reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons respectively.

Even though the numbers seem massive, the expert classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock which wiped out prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions with energy content equal to greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says.

"The insights from this will help us developing the countermeasures to be adopted to protect spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.