🔗 Share this article Why the Year 2026 Will Be a Year Like No Other for India's Solar Observation Mission A massive solar eruption is much bigger than our planet For India's first solar observatory, the year 2026 is expected to be truly unique. It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed into space recently – will be able to observe our star during the peak of its solar cycle. According to research, it comes approximately every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles swapping positions. It's a time marked by intense activity. It involves our star transition from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions 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 reach velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out in any direction, even toward our planet. At top speed, it would take an ejection 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance. "In the normal or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs a day," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, we expect them to be 10 or more each day." Researching coronal mass ejections ranks among the most important research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and two, because activities occurring on the solar surface endanger systems on Earth and in orbit. The aurora borealis lit up the darkness across America in November Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to human life, but they do affect life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, including Indian satellites, are stationed. "The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, which are a clear example that solar particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the scientist clarifies. "However, they may cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, disable power grids and affect weather and communication satellites." Past Solar Events The strongest solar storm in history was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems worldwide In 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid failed, affecting millions in darkness for hours During late 2015, solar storms disrupted air traffic control, causing disruption in Sweden and some other European airports In February 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft failing If we are able to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at origin and track its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to switch off power grids and satellites and move them to safety. The Sun's corona is only visible during a total solar eclipse from Earth The Mission's Special Capability While other space observatories watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere. "The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the expert. In other words, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon does only during eclipses. Moreover, it's unique that can study solar events using optical wavelengths, letting it measure eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data that show how strong a CME would be if it headed our direction. Readiness for Maximum Activity In preparation for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers worked together analyzing information obtained from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently. This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – 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 TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons used in Japan were much smaller in scale each. Although the numbers make it sound massive, the expert classifies it as a moderate event. The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions with energy content equal to even more than that. "In my view the CME we evaluated to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says. "The learnings from this will assist in work out protective measures to be adopted safeguarding satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.