🔗 Share this article The Reason the Year 2026 Is Set to Be a Year Like No Other for India's Sun Mission A massive solar eruption is much bigger than Earth Regarding India's first solar observatory, the year 2026 will be truly unique. This marks the initial occasion the observatory – which was placed into space last year – can observe our star during the peak of its solar cycle. According to scientific data, it comes roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles swapping positions. It's a time marked by intense activity. It involves the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer. Composed of ionized particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can travel toward various directions, even toward our planet. At top speed, the journey takes a CME about half a day to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun. "During typical or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect them to be 10 or more daily." Studying CMEs ranks among the key research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections 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 orbit. Northern lights illuminated the night sky across America in November Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to people, but they do affect life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, including Indian satellites, orbit. "The most spectacular manifestations of a CME include northern lights, being a clear example that charged particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the scientist explains. "But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft fail, disable electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft." Historical Solar Events The most powerful solar storm in history occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines worldwide During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network failed, affecting six million people in darkness for nine hours During late 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, causing chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs Recently in 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft failing With capability to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, measure its heat at origin and track its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way. The Sun's corona is only visible when the Moon blocks the Sun from our perspective Aditya-L1's Special Capability While other space observatories observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 has an advantage over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere. "The instrument is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona around the clock, throughout the year, even during solar events," notes the expert. In other words, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare allowing researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses does only during eclipses. Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, letting it determine eruption heat and thermal output – key clues indicating the intensity of an eruption if it headed our direction. Preparation for Maximum Activity In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, scientists worked together to study the data gathered from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently. This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes. At origin, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale each. Even though the numbers seem massive, the expert describes it as a "medium-sized" one. The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions carrying power matching greater levels. "In my view this eruption we analyzed happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison assessing what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he says. "The insights from this will help us developing protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.