🔗 Share this article

Regarding India's first solar observatory, 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 the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, this occurs approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees our star changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel in any direction, even toward the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star emits two to three CMEs daily," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect there will be over ten daily."

Researching CMEs ranks among the most important scientific objectives for the Indian maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, since events that take place on the solar surface threaten infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present immediate danger to human life, but they do affect life on Earth through generating magnetic disturbances that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions are auroras, being a clear example that solar particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down power grids and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, leaving six million people in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, causing chaos in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

If we are able to see events on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or solar eruption in real time, record its temperature at origin and watch its path, it can work as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft redirecting them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions watching our star, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," says the expert.

In other words, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses provide only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, enabling it to measure eruption heat and heat energy – key clues indicating how strong of an eruption when traveling toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, researchers collaborated to study information obtained from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

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

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs with energy content equal to even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed to have occurred during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says.

"The learnings gained will assist in work out protective measures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.