🔗 Share this article

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

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – that entered into space last year – can watch the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles swapping positions.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and is marked by a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

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

"In the normal or low-activity times, our star launches a few solar eruptions daily," explains a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be over ten each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the most important research goals for the Indian first solar observatory. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the star in the center of our solar system, and secondly, since events that take place on the Sun endanger systems on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to people, yet they impact life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful displays from solar eruptions are auroras, which are direct evidence that charged particles from our star journey to Earth," the scientist clarifies.

"However, they may make all the electronics on a satellite fail, knock down electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm in history occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines across the globe
• In 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid failed, affecting millions without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, causing chaos across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at the source and watch its path, this serves as advanced warning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire solar atmosphere around the clock, 365 days a year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

In other words, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, blocking the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, letting it determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – crucial data that show how strong a CME would be if it headed toward Earth.

Preparation for Peak Period

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, scientists collaborated to study the data obtained from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began on 13 September 2024 during early hours. Its mass totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

At origin, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to millions of tons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller in scale each.

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

The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see 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 is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he states.

"The learnings gained will assist in developing protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.