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

For Aditya-L1, the year 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed into space last year – will be able to observe our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, it comes roughly every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent could be the planet's poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It involves the Sun transition from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out in any direction, even toward the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or low-activity times, the Sun launches two to three CMEs daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect there will be 10 or more each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the key research goals for the Indian first solar observatory. One, because the ejections offer a chance to study the star at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the Sun threaten systems on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to human life, yet they impact life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, being direct evidence that charged particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite fail, disable power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm ever recorded was the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, leaving six million people without power for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed air traffic control, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• In February 2022, a CME had led to 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to observe what happens on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at the source and watch its path, it can work as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions watching our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size that lets it effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare to let researchers continuously observe its faint outer corona – something natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions using optical wavelengths, letting it determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – crucial data that show the intensity of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers worked together to study information obtained from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale each.

Even though these figures make it sound massive, the expert classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth carried enormous energy and when solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions carrying power matching greater levels.

"I consider this eruption we analyzed to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard for future comparison to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The learnings from this will assist in developing protective measures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.