The Reason 2026 Is Set to Be a Year Like No Other for the Indian Sun Mission

Regarding Aditya-L1, the year 2026 is expected to be truly unique.

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – can observe the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

As per research, this occurs roughly every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At top speed, it would take a CME 15 hours to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star emits two to three CMEs a day," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more daily."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the key research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose immediate danger to people, but they do affect our planet through generating geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, including Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are direct evidence that charged particles from our star journey toward our planet," the expert clarifies.

"However, they may cause electronic systems on a satellite malfunction, disable electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar event ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving millions in darkness for hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, causing chaos in Sweden and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection had led to dozens of spacecraft failing

If we are able 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 switch off power grids and satellites and move them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories observing our star, Aditya-L1 has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon provide only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique that can study solar events in visible light, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues indicating how strong of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers collaborated analyzing the data obtained from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission 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.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of explosives – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale each.

Even though the numbers seem incredibly large, the expert classifies it as a moderate event.

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs carrying power equal to even more than that.

"I consider the CME we evaluated happened during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The learnings from this will help us work out the countermeasures to implement to protect spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.