The Reason 2026 Will Be a Year Like No Other for India's Solar Observation Mission

Regarding Aditya-L1, the year 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

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

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

This period of great turbulence. It involves the Sun changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar storms and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of charged particles, a CME can weigh of billions of tons and reach a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out in any direction, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect them to be 10 or more daily."

Studying CMEs is one of the key scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and two, since events that take place on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, including Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, which are a clear example that solar particles from Sun journey to Earth," the expert clarifies.

"But they can also make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, disable power grids and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting millions in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, causing disruption in Sweden and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at the source and track its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories observing our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others when it comes to watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of almost all of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, blocking the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data indicating how strong a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Peak Period

In preparation for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated analyzing information gathered from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission 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 sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

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

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs carrying power equal to even more than that.

"I consider the CME we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard for future comparison assessing what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The insights gained will assist in developing the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.