Why 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 will be like no other.

This marks the initial occasion 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 polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed 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 head out toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions daily," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect them to be 10 or more each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections offer a chance to study the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the Sun threaten systems on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to people, but they do affect life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, are stationed.

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

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite fail, disable electrical networks and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar event ever recorded was the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at origin and watch its path, this serves as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other space observatories observing the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk permitting 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, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare to let researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine eruption heat and thermal output – key clues that show the intensity of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers worked together analyzing the data obtained from a major CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Although the numbers seem massive, the scientist describes it as a moderate event.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs carrying power equal to greater levels.

"I consider the CME we evaluated to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says.

"The insights from this will assist in developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding satellites in orbit. They will also help us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.