🔗 Share this article The Reason the Year 2026 Will Be an Unprecedented Year for India's Solar Observation Mission A massive solar eruption is much bigger than Earth Regarding Aditya-L1, 2026 will be like no other. This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – will be able to watch the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle. According to research, this occurs roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles swapping positions. This period of great turbulence. It involves our star transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona. Composed of ionized particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out toward various directions, even toward the Earth. At top speed, it would take a CME about half a day to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance. "In the normal or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect there will be 10 or more daily." Researching CMEs is one of the key research goals for the Indian first solar observatory. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the star at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, because activities that take place on the Sun endanger systems on our planet and in orbit. Northern lights illuminated the night sky over the US 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 geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, are stationed. "The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are a clear example that solar particles from our star are travelling to Earth," the expert explains. "But they can also cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, disable electrical networks and disrupt weather and communication satellites." Historical Solar Events The strongest solar storm in history was the Carrington Event which knocked out telegraph lines across the globe During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving millions in darkness for hours In November 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, causing chaos in Sweden and various European airports In February 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft failing With capability to observe events on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at origin and track its path, this serves as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft and move them to safety. The solar atmosphere can be seen when the Moon blocks the Sun from our perspective Aditya-L1's Special Capability While other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere. "Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk permitting continuous observation of nearly the entire solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, including during solar events," notes the researcher. In other words, this instrument functions as an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare allowing scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat natural eclipses does only during eclipses. Additionally, this is the only mission that can study solar events in visible light, enabling it to measure a CME's temperature and heat energy – crucial data indicating the intensity a CME would be if it headed toward Earth. Readiness for Maximum Activity In preparation for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers worked together to study information gathered from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently. This event began on 13 September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship weighed much less. Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to millions of tons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons respectively. Even though these figures make it sound incredibly large, the expert classifies it as a "medium-sized" one. The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs with energy content matching greater levels. "I consider the CME we evaluated happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard that we'll be using assessing what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he says. "The learnings gained will help us developing the countermeasures to implement to protect spacecraft in near space. They will also help achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.