🔗 Share this article The Reason the Year 2026 Will Be a Year Like No Other for India's Solar Observation Mission A massive solar eruption is much bigger than Earth For Aditya-L1, the year 2026 is expected to be truly unique. It's the first time the observatory – that entered in orbit last year – will be able to watch our star during the peak of its solar cycle. According to research, it comes roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles changing places. This period of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt from the solar corona. Composed of ionized particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance. "In the normal or low-activity times, our star launches a few solar eruptions daily," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated there will be 10 or more each day." Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the key scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections offer a chance to study the star at the centre of our planetary system, and two, since events that take place on the Sun threaten infrastructure on our planet and in space. Northern lights illuminated the darkness across America last autumn Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to human life, but they do affect our planet by causing magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, orbit. "The most beautiful displays from solar eruptions are auroras, which are a clear example that solar particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the expert clarifies. "However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, knock down power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft." Past Solar Events The strongest solar storm in history occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines across the globe During 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid failed, affecting six million people without power for hours In November 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports In February 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft being lost If we are able to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at the source and track its path, this serves as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft redirecting them to safety. The Sun's corona can be seen when the Moon blocks the Sun from Earth The Mission's Unique Advantage There are other space observatories observing the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere. "Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the expert. Essentially, the coronagraph acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses does only during specific moments. Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues that show how strong a CME would be if it headed our direction. Preparation for Maximum Activity In preparation for next year's peak solar activity period, scientists worked together analyzing the data obtained from a major solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently. It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less. At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale respectively. Even though these figures seem massive, the scientist classifies it as a moderate event. The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions carrying power matching greater levels. "I consider this eruption we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he states. "The insights from this will help us developing the countermeasures to be adopted to protect spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.