🔗 Share this article

Regarding India's first solar observatory, 2026 will be like no other.

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

As per scientific data, it comes roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – a similar Earth scenario would be the planet's poles swapping positions.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees our star transition from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer.

Made up of charged particles, a CME can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out in any direction, even toward the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes a CME about half a day to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, our star launches a few solar eruptions a day," explains a leading scientist. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be 10 or more daily."

Studying CMEs is one of the key research goals of India's first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun at the centre of our solar system, and two, because activities that take place on the solar surface endanger infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to human life, yet they impact life on Earth by causing magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, including many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are a clear example that charged particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the expert explains.

"However, they may cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, knock down electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Events

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled telegraph lines worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving millions without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted flight operations, leading to disruption in Sweden and various European air hubs
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused 38 commercial satellites being lost

With capability to see what happens on the Sun's corona and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at the source and track its path, this serves as a forewarning to shut down electrical systems and satellites and move them to safety.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

There are other space observatories observing the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic lunar coverage, fully covering the Sun's photosphere permitting continuous observation of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – something the real Moon does only during specific moments.

Moreover, this is the only mission that can study solar events in visible light, letting it measure eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data indicating how strong of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers worked together to study the data gathered from a major CMEs recorded by the mission has observed recently.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – in comparison the atomic bombs used in Japan were much smaller in scale respectively.

Although the numbers make it sound incredibly large, the expert describes it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, we could see eruptions with energy content matching even more than that.

"In my view this eruption we analyzed happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the benchmark that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he says.

"The insights gained will assist in developing protective measures to be adopted to protect satellites in orbit. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.