🔗 Share this article

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

As per scientific data, this occurs roughly every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun changing from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of charged particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel in any direction, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take a CME about half a day to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions daily," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, we expect them to be over ten daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the key scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the star at the centre of our solar system, and two, because activities occurring on the solar surface endanger systems on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs seldom present immediate danger to human life, but they do affect our planet through generating magnetic disturbances affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, which are a clear example that charged particles from our star journey toward our planet," the scientist explains.

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

Historical Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving six million people in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, causing disruption across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to see events on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at origin and track its path, it can work as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft redirecting them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge over others when it comes to watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine eruption heat and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's solar maximum, scientists worked together analyzing information gathered from a major CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

At origin, the heat reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale each.

Even though the numbers seem incredibly large, the expert classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions with energy content matching even more than that.

"I consider the CME we evaluated happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard for future comparison assessing what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The learnings gained will help us work out the countermeasures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.