🔗 Share this article

Regarding India's first solar observatory, the year 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

It's the first time the observatory – that entered into space recently – can observe the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

According to research, it comes roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

This period of great turbulence. It involves the Sun changing from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the frequency 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 may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out in any direction, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection about half a day to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star emits two to three CMEs daily," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect them to be over ten daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the key research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the solar surface threaten systems on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to people, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in near space, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful displays from solar eruptions include northern lights, being direct evidence that solar particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

"But they can also make all the electronics on a satellite fail, disable power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded was the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting six million people in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to see events in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its path, it can work as advanced warning to shut down power grids and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals when it comes to watching the corona.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions that lets it effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," notes the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, letting it measure a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data indicating how strong a CME would be if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, scientists collaborated to study information gathered from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that sank Titanic weighed much less.

At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Even though these figures make it sound massive, the scientist classifies it as a moderate event.

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions with energy content matching greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using assessing what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The learnings from this will assist in developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in near space. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.