The Reason the Year 2026 Will Be a Year Like No Other for the Indian Sun Mission

Regarding India's first solar observatory, the year 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed into space recently – will be able to watch the Sun during the peak of its solar cycle.

As per scientific data, this occurs roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At top speed, it would take an ejection about half a day to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun launches two to three CMEs a day," says a leading scientist. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the star at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on Earth and in space.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to human life, yet they impact our planet by causing geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays of a CME are auroras, being a clear example that charged particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the expert clarifies.

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, disable power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded was the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted air traffic control, causing disruption in Sweden and various European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft failing

If we are able to observe events on the Sun's corona and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at the source and track its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other solar missions observing the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," notes the researcher.

Essentially, this instrument acts like a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare allowing scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique that can study solar events in visible light, letting it determine eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data that show how strong a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers collaborated to study the data gathered from one of the largest CMEs 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 – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale each.

Even though these figures seem massive, the scientist describes it as a moderate event.

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions with energy content equal to even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we analyzed to have occurred during periods was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The learnings from this will assist in work out protective measures to implement to protect spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.