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

For India's first solar observatory, the year 2026 will be like no other.

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – which was placed into space last year – can watch the Sun during the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles swapping positions.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees our star changing from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes a CME about half a day to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun launches two to three CMEs daily," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect them to be over ten each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the key scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and two, since events occurring on the Sun endanger systems on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to people, yet they impact our planet by causing geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in near space, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, are stationed.

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

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, leaving six million people without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft failing

If we are able to see events in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at origin and watch its path, this serves as a forewarning to shut down power grids and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories watching our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, throughout the year, even during solar events," notes the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let scientists constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique that can study solar events in visible light, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues indicating the intensity a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, researchers worked together analyzing information 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 – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less.

At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons respectively.

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

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions carrying power equal to even more than that.

"I consider this eruption 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 during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The insights from this will assist in work out the countermeasures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid us gain deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.