The Reason 2026 Is Set to Be an Unprecedented Year for the Indian Solar Observation Mission

Regarding Aditya-L1, the year 2026 will be like no other.

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed into space last year – will be able to watch our star when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes approximately every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent could be the planet's poles swapping positions.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It involves our star transition from calm to stormy and features a significant rise in the number of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of charged particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star emits a few solar eruptions a day," says a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect them to be over ten daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the key scientific objectives of India's first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the star in the center of our solar system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the solar surface threaten systems on Earth and in space.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to human life, but they do affect our planet through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, being a clear example that charged particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems on a satellite malfunction, disable electrical networks and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting six million people without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, leading to chaos in Sweden and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to see what happens on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at the source and watch its path, this serves as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

There are other space observatories observing our star, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during solar events," notes the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon provide only during eclipses.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, letting it measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues that show how strong of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, scientists collaborated analyzing the data obtained from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

Even though the numbers seem incredibly large, the scientist describes it as a moderate event.

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs carrying power equal to even more than that.

"In my view the CME we analyzed happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard for future comparison to evaluate what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The learnings from this will help us work out protective measures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. They will also help achieving a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.