Why the Year 2026 Is Set to Be a Year Like No Other for India's Sun Mission

For Aditya-L1, the year 2026 will be truly unique.

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – that entered into space recently – will be able to observe the Sun during the peak of its solar cycle.

As per research, it comes roughly every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It sees our star changing from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection can weigh of billions of tons and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out toward various directions, even toward our planet. At top speed, it would take an ejection about half a day to cover the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or low-activity times, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more daily."

Researching CMEs is one of the key scientific objectives of India's first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, since events that take place on the solar surface threaten systems on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to people, yet they impact our planet by causing geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, orbit.

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

"However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, disable electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting millions in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, causing chaos in Sweden and various European airports
• In February 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost

If we are able to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at origin and track its trajectory, 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 watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals when it comes to watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the researcher.

In other words, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare allowing researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique that can study solar events in visible light, letting it determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues 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, scientists worked together to study information obtained from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Although these figures make it sound massive, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions with energy content matching greater levels.

"In my view the CME we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The learnings gained will assist in developing the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of our space environment," he adds.