The Reason 2026 Will Be an Unprecedented Year for India's Solar Observation Mission

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

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – can observe our star when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to research, this occurs roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent could be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves our star changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME 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, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes an ejection 15 hours to cover the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect there will be over ten daily."

Researching CMEs is one of the most important scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to study the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, since events occurring on the solar surface threaten infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to human life, yet they impact life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays from solar eruptions are auroras, which are a clear example that charged particles from our star journey toward our planet," the expert explains.

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

Past Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving millions in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or solar eruption in real time, measure its heat at the source and track its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

There are other solar missions observing our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues that show the intensity of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers worked together analyzing information obtained from a major solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

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

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content comparable to millions of tons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale each.

Even though these figures seem incredibly large, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs with energy content matching greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard that we'll be using assessing what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he says.

"The insights from this will help us developing the countermeasures to implement to protect spacecraft in near space. They will also help achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.