Why 2026 Is Set to Be an Unprecedented Year for India's Sun Mission

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

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed into space recently – can watch the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, this occurs approximately every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees our star transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME about half a day to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star launches two to three CMEs a day," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more daily."

Studying CMEs ranks among the key research goals of India's first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the star in the center of our solar system, and secondly, since events that take place on the Sun endanger systems on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to human life, but they do affect our planet by causing geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in near space, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, are stationed.

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

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, disable power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar event ever recorded occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid failed, leaving millions in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, causing chaos across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at origin and watch its trajectory, this serves as a forewarning to shut down power grids and satellites and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions watching our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions that lets it nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the solar disk permitting continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during solar events," says the expert.

Essentially, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface to let researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, it's unique that can study solar events in visible light, letting it measure eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data that show how strong a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated analyzing information gathered from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons respectively.

Even though the numbers seem massive, the expert describes it as a moderate event.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs carrying power equal to greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed happened during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The learnings from this will assist in work out the countermeasures to implement to protect spacecraft in near space. They will also help achieving a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.