🔗 Share this article

Regarding India's first solar observatory, 2026 is expected to be like no other.

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – which was placed in orbit recently – will be able to watch our star during the peak of its solar cycle.

According to research, this occurs roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles changing places.

This period of great turbulence. It sees our star changing from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer.

Composed of ionized particles, a CME can weigh of billions of tons and reach a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take a CME about half a day to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, the Sun launches two to three CMEs a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more each day."

Researching coronal mass ejections is one of the key scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the Sun in the center of our solar system, and two, since events occurring on the solar surface endanger systems on our planet and in space.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to human life, yet they impact life on Earth through generating magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, are stationed.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, which are a clear example that solar particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the expert explains.

"But they can also make all the electronics on a satellite fail, knock down power grids and affect weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm in history was the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting millions without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disturbed air traffic control, causing chaos across Scandinavia and various European airports
• In February 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to observe events in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at the source and watch its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to shut down power grids and spacecraft and move them to safety.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other solar missions observing the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage over others when it comes to watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the researcher.

In other words, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the solar glare allowing researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, it's unique that can study solar events in visible light, letting it determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues indicating the intensity of an eruption if it headed toward Earth.

Readiness for Peak Period

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists collaborated to study information obtained from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale respectively.

Even though the numbers make it sound massive, the scientist describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid that eliminated prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions with energy content matching even more than that.

"I consider the CME we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. This establishes the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The learnings gained will help us developing protective measures to implement safeguarding satellites in orbit. They will also help us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.