🔗 Share this article

For India's first solar observatory, 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

It's the first time the observatory – that entered in orbit last year – can observe the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, it comes approximately every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It involves the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that erupt from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a CME may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out in any direction, including towards the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to cover the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star launches a few solar eruptions a day," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect them to be 10 or more daily."

Researching CMEs is one of the most important scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. Firstly, as these eruptions offer a chance to study the star in the center of our solar system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the Sun threaten infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose a direct threat to people, yet they impact life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations of a CME are auroras, being a clear example that solar particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the scientist explains.

"But they can also cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, disable electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm in history occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting millions in darkness for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, leading to chaos in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

If we are able to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at origin and track its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to shut down 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, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during solar events," says the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine eruption heat and heat energy – key clues indicating the intensity a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

In preparation for next year's solar maximum, researchers collaborated to study information obtained from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

It originated on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale each.

Although these figures seem massive, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs carrying power equal to even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed happened during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The learnings from this will assist in work out protective measures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.